BlackRock has experienced a difficult time in the past few years, and it's been a difficult task. Although it is still hugely profitable, the firm has recently taken some big steps because of its image as a supporter of progressive utopianism through its use of ESG investment guidelines.
Government officials in Red state are defensitizing the company from managing their pension funds. The conservative commentariat has accused ESG of causing higher gas prices and inflation. BlackRock's reputation is that it encourages investment in'sustainable' energy sources but encourages oil companies to stop drilling. Larry Fink, its voluminous leader and CEO, has been branded as a leftist in a C-suite.
Of course, the truth is always more complicated than political agitprop. Even though he was an excellent risk manager during his 50-year career on Wall Street, Fink is really a moderate Democrat. BlackRock's ESG portfolio is just a small percentage of its $10 trillion in assets under management.
Fink has evangelized, maybe too much, about the necessity of going green, how climate change is a long-term threat to the economy and an investment opportunity. He says the sustainable economy could be like the tech boom - throwing off millions of new jobs and creating trillions in new wealth. Fink isn't exactly an ESG zealot as portrayed. He also said the green economy must be done in a transition or you will get inflation we have now. Plus, you won't ever hear the letters E-S-G coming out of his mouth again. The whole thing has become so politically toxic, Fink has banned it from his vocabulary.
'' The need for sustainable energy sources, '' Fink told me recently before expounding on the need for sustainable energy sources.
Larry can be a handful, and the red-state pension opposition isn't letting up. My sources inside BlackRock said that BlackRock's flacks and marketing teams are working overtime to come up with a new, coherent message that fully explains the company's ESG work and removes it from the current increasingly nasty political debate.
It won't be easy, she said. BlackRock's messaging pickle was on display Tuesday night during a'summit' of business and finance execs sponsored by news outlet Semafor when its business editor, Liz Hoffman, interviewed a man named Mark Wiedman, head of BlackRock's global client business.
Wiedman is a big deal for BlackRock, given how many people have invested in the firm. He is on the short-list to replace Fink as he retires, as is expected in the next few years.
Despite its attacks from conservatives, Wiedman said ESG is a capitalist impulse. But Larry Fink and BlackRock didn't create the demand from blue-state pension officials and other virtue-signaling investors who want ESG porfolios.
He went on to explain why BlackRock's management is grappling with how to message ESG. BlackRock's problem, Wiedman said, can be traced to talking too much about ESG.
The investigation into the alleged fraudster, Sam Bankman-Fried, a.k.a the Notorious SBF, began last week. The chances of him getting exonerated are really low, he said. A mountain of evidence against him comes from former co-workers who claim that he agreed to pilfer customers' assets from his FTX crypto exchange to cover up billions of dollars of losses in his affiliate crypto hedge fund and finance his lavish, jet-setting lifestyle that obviously didn't include his personal hygiene.
I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure the 31-year-old SBF never heard of the Sgt. But Schultz's lawyers and colleagues are certainly channeling the character's fake obliviousness. As the trial began, SBF's lawyers argued that the former crypto billionaire and wunderkind - as he feted celebrities and athletes to tout his FTX, rubbed shoulders with rich and powerful investors, and wooed all those politicians about how he was making money to make the world a better place - was really a well-meaning stooge. Despite his degree in physics and mathematics from MIT, he was easily hoodwinked by others at the company, including his ex-girlfriend who ran the hedge fund known as Alameda Capital.
What made the Sgt. Heroes' work and the Sgt. Sgt. Heroes so successful? Schultz's hilarious sense of humor was that it was all such a crazy, comedic farce.
When you're staring at potentially life behind bars like SBF is, it's best not to have a defense that's a joke.