BlackRock Investment Management Company pushes a radical agenda, and consumers should be wary of investments managed by the firm, Consumers' Research said.
During the National Association of State Treasurers (NAST) annual convention, Consumers' Research accused BlackRock and CEO Larry Fink of cozying up to dictators.
Consumers' Research says the firm is violating its fiduciary duty by not prioritizing shareholder value through its investments in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) and ties to China.
"Led by Chairman and CEO Larry Fink, the company uses its clout to push a radical agenda in coordination with other financiers through a network of international organizations," Consumers' Research said on its website.
"This Consumer Warning highlights the commitments BlackRock has made with their investors' money — commitments that adversely impact the U.S. economy and likely violate their fiduciary duty to seek the best return, putting your retirement at risk in the name of progressive politics."
Consumers' Research, a conservative independent educational nonprofit organization, has worked to criticize BlackRock and Fink involvement with China and for its embrace of ESG goals in investing, the Washington Examiner reported.
Republican state treasurers have been using their power to push back against ESG and BlackRock, which is the world's largest money manager, the Examiner said.
Consumers' Research chose to run a mobile billboard – showing Fink handing cash to China's Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin with the text "BlackRock: Our Enemy, Their Ally" – outside of the NAST meeting because BlackRock representatives were in town for the conference.
"Consumers' Research has confirmed that meetings between state treasurers and BlackRock's lobbyists are taking place during the NAST convention," Consumers' Research Executive Director Will Hild told the Washington Examiner. "This is the latest attempt by BlackRock to cover up the tracks of their anti-American ESG agenda."
Hild told the Examiner that BlackRock spends "money hand over fist to cozy up to" and gain access to different parties involved in the dispute over ESG by telling them different things, depending on whether they're on the left or right.
Nineteen GOP attorneys general, claiming BlackRock's policies are undercutting shareholder profits in managing state pension funds, last month sent a letter to Fink challenging his firm's commitment to ESG priorities.
The AGs say that BlackRock's actions may violate state laws concerning pension funds that require a sole focus on financial returns.
"Our states will not idly stand for our pensioners' retirements to be sacrificed for BlackRock's climate agenda," the attorneys general said, the Examiner reported.
"The time has come for BlackRock to come clean on whether it actually values our states' most valuable stakeholders, our current and future retirees, or risk losses even more significant than those caused by BlackRock's quixotic climate agenda."
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