Tag: Vanguard

NGO Study IDs Vanguard, BlackRock as Big Climate-Change Villains

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.ai-cio.com/news/ngo-study-ids-vanguard-blackrock-big-climate-change-villains/

Excerpt:

Guess who the largest investors in climate-harming energy companies are? That would be major asset managers, with BlackRock and Vanguard Group the biggest offenders. So says an environmentalists’ report, “Investing in Climate Chaos.”

The report, spearheaded by Urgewald, a German environmental group, and conducted “in partnership” with more than 20 other nongovernmental organizations, comes down hard on two financial service stalwarts in particular: Vanguard, the mutual fund powerhouse, and BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager.

Beyond those two, half of the stakes in fossil fuel companies identified in the report are held by just 23 investors. What’s more,18 of them are U.S.-based, the advocacy group stated, basing the report on data collected in January.

….

BlackRock has positions in oil and gas companies that account for two-thirds of the world’s yearly hydrocarbon production, per Urgewald. Its single largest energy holding is also Exxon, which is the firm’s ninth biggest equity position overall. . Although the asset manager has a policy against investing in any business that gets at least one-quarter of its revenue from coal, the report charged that BlackRock exempts power companies that use coal. “As a result, BlackRock remains the world’s largest investor in coal developers,” it said.

….

In the past, BlackRock has responded to critics on the right and the left by saying that, while it supports ESG, is not about to “dictate how clients should invest.” In a statement, it declared that “transition to a low carbon is in the interest of realizing the best long-term financial results for our clients.” 

Vanguard, also under GOP attack, has made much the same argument. It did raise environmentalists’ ire last year when it quit the investment-industry initiative on combating climate change, saying it wanted to “speak independently on matters of importance to our investors.” Some contended that Vanguard was just knuckling under to politicians’ pressure.

Author(s): Larry Light

Publication Date: 25 Apr 2023

Publication Site: ai-CIO

Transcript: Tom Rampulla

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://ritholtz.com/2022/10/transcript-tom-rampulla/

Excerpt:

BARRY RITHOLTZ, HOST, MASTERS IN BUSINESS: This week on the podcast, I have an extra special guest, Tom Rampulla has been with the Vanguard Group since 1988. He has worked with every CEO, starting with Jack Bogle, all the way up to the current CEO Tim Buckley, and has essentially helped to establish the Financial Advisors Group, essentially the group at Vanguard that works with RIAs and broker dealers and other financial professionals who provide portfolios, advice, financial plans to the investing public.

He has a unique perch from with which to view the financial services industry, both from within Vanguard as well as looking out over the financial landscape and seeing what’s going on with such trends as mutual funds, ETFs, direct indexing, the rise of passive, the rise not just of Vanguard, but the dominance of Vanguard, and the associated Vanguard effect, the pressure on fees that have helped make investing so affordable. We discussed all these things as well as why there has never been a better time to be a retail investor than right now, right here in this era. I found the conversation to be absolutely fascinating, and I think you will also.

So with no further ado, my conversation with the Vanguard Group’s Tom Rampulla.

I’m Barry Ritholtz. You’re listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My special guest this week is Tom Rampulla. He is the managing director of Vanguard’s Financial Advisor Services Division, where he began back in 2002. That group provides investment services, education and research to more than a thousand financial advisory firms, representing more than $3 trillion in assets. Tom joined Vanguard back in 1988. Tom Rampulla, welcome to Bloomberg.

THOMAS RAMPULLA, MANAGING DIRECTOR, FINANCIAL ADVISOR SERVICES DIVISION, VANGUARD: Thanks, Barry. It’s great to be here.

……

RAMPULLA: You talk to them off the ledge. My clients, the advisors are really earning their fees right now, and providing a tremendous amount of value. So there’s a lot of phone volume, a lot of digital volume, so we’re very, very, very busy. And you know, it’s all about calming people down, we’ll get through this, you look at the long term. Things tend to work out. We — you know, our investing philosophy is, first of all, get an objective, put a plan together, make sure it’s a low cost plan.

And the other thing is be disciplined, right. Stick to your plan, just get rid of the noise. This is big noise. This isn’t just some little blip. This is big noise, but you know, get rid of noise and be disciplined. Most times that’s around rebalancing. This time, stocks and bonds are both going down, so you’re not rebalancing so much. But you know, March of 2020 was a great opportunity to rebalance and add some value. So it’s really sticking to that long-term approach and that discipline is what we really recommend.

Publication Date: 18 Oct 2022

Publication Site: Barry Ritholtz

To Protect Australian Workers’ Retirement Savings, We Must Democratize Pensions

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://jacobinmag.com/2021/05/australia-pensions-superannuation-super-industry-funds-democratic-control-investment-vanguard-equity-stock-market

Excerpt:

By design, Australia’s existing superannuation system reproduces inequalities built into the labor market. This is because employers must pay super as a proportion of wages into individual accounts that then earn compounding returns. Upon retirement, high-income workers may find they own a significant pool of capital.

Meanwhile, lower-income workers — disproportionately women — retire with the lowest super balances. The same will be true of younger or marginalized workers who are trapped in precarious or informal employment. As wages continue to decline and precarious work becomes more prevalent, the number of people with a stake in defending superannuation is shrinking year by year.

To make matters worse, in its present form, superannuation undermines genuinely redistributive institutions like the age pension. This is because conservative political forces are able to present them as a last-resort safety net rather than a guarantee of the right to a decent retirement.

Author(s): Robert Lechte

Publication Date: 9 May 2021

Publication Site: Jacobin Magazine

Exposing Corporate Climate Denial

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.dailyposter.com/p/exposing-corporate-climate-denial

Excerpt:

Meanwhile, investor efforts to require political spending disclosures at individual companies were halted on many occasions by large asset managers like BlackRock and Vanguard, which have regularly used their immense shareholder voting power to shield companies from transparency.

Now with a new SEC chairman, transparency advocates see an opportunity for progress. 

“People want to know who companies are bankrolling,” said U.S. Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.). H.R. 1, the democracy reform package passed by House Democrats earlier this month, includes a bill from Levin to repeal the Republican measure blocking the SEC from requiring companies to disclose their political spending. 

Author(s): Julia Rock

Publication Date: 10 March 2021

Publication Site: Daily Poster