Missouri latest state to divest BlackRock funds over ESG (2022)

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October 25, 2022

Last week, Missouri Treasurer Scott Fitzpatrick (R) became the latest state financial officer to announce that he would be pulling his state’s funds from BlackRock, Inc.’s asset management in response to the firm’s ESG commitments and what the fund calls sustainability investing practices:

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Missouri State Treasurer Scott Fitzpatrick announced Tuesday morning in a statement first provided to FOX Business that the Missouri State Employees’ Retirement System (MOSERS), of which he is a member, sold all public equities managed by BlackRock. With the announcement, Missouri joins a growing list of Republican-led states who have quit BlackRock and other banks over their environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives. "This is the right thing to do for Missouri state employees who rely on the assets managed by MOSERS for their retirement," Fitzpatrick told FOX Business. "Fiduciary duty must remain the top priority for investment managers—a duty some of them have abdicated in favor of forcing a left wing social and political agenda that has failed to succeed legislatively, on publicly traded companies." "We should not allow asset managers such as BlackRock, who have demonstrated that they will prioritize advancing a woke political agenda above the financial interests of their customers, to continue speaking on behalf of the state of Missouri," he continued. "It is past time that all investors recognize the massive fiduciary breach that is taking place before our eyes, and do something about it."… BlackRock and other major financial institutions like State Street and Vanguard have spearheaded an effort to promote ESG standards over the last several years. The ESG movement broadly seeks to promote a green energy transition and left-wing social priorities through the financial sector. Republican states and groups like the State Financial Officers Foundation (SFOF), though, have waged a war against the ESG movement, arguing it is anti-democratic and harms taxpayers by pushing investments that don't result in maximum earnings for consumers…. The SFOF has successfully organized a coalition of state treasurers over the last several months to leverage their pension plans and state investments to block banks from pursuing an ESG agenda. West Virginia, Louisiana, Texas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Florida, South Carolina, Arizona, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, Arkansas and North Dakota have all pushed back against the ESG movement.

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• Economy and Society: Ballotpedia's ESG newsletter

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