- Florida’s Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis announced that the state’s Treasury would remove BlackRock as a manager
- The state is divesting about $600million in short-term investments, and will freeze another $1.43billion in long-term securities with the firm
- The goal is to reallocate all of the money to other money managers by January
- It undercuts how ESG funding is set to become a major issue for Republicans as they take up control of the House of Representatives in January
- But the Biden administration is allowing retirement plan investors to focus on ESG investing when deciding where to put retirement funds
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has pulled a whopping $2billion worth of its assets from woke manager BlackRock, Inc. — the largest such divestment by a state opposed to the asset manager’s environmental, social and corporate governance policies
The state’s Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis announced on Thursday that the state’s Treasury, which he oversees, would remove BlackRock as a manager of about $600million in short-term investments, and have its custodian freeze another $1.43billion in long-term securities with the firm.
The goal, he says, is to reallocate all of the money to other money managers by the start of 2023.
While the move will hardly dent BlackRock’s $8trillion in assets, it underscores how the backlash among many Republican politicians against ESG investing — which they see as promoting a ‘woke agenda’ — is gathering steam.
It will likely be a major issue in Congress once the GOP seizes control of the House of Representatives in January, even as the Biden administration begins to allow fiduciaries to invest retirement funds into investments that promote such ideals.
In his statement on Thursday, Florida CFO Patronis accused BlackRock of focusing on ESG rather than higher returns for investors.
‘Using our cash… to fund BlackRock’s social-engineering project isn’t something Florida ever signed up for,’ he said. ‘It’s got nothing to do with maximizing returns, and is the opposite of what an asset manager is paid to do.’
‘Florida’s Treasury Division is divesting from BlackRock because they have openly stated they’ve got other goals than producing returns,’ Patronis continued, adding: ‘There’s no lack of companies who will invest on our behalf, so the Florida Treasury will be taking its business elsewhere.’
The move comes just months after DeSantis passed a resolution directing Florida’s fund managers to invest state funds in ‘a manner that prioritizes the highest return on investments … without considering the environmental, social and corporate governance movement.’
DeSantis said in a statement at the time: ‘Corporate power has increasingly been utilized to impose an ideological agenda on the American people through the perversion of financial investment priorities under the euphemistic banners of environmental, social and corporate governance, and diversity, inclusion and equity.
‘With the resolution we passed today the tax dollars and proxy votes of the people of Florida will no longer be commandeered by Wall Street financial firms and used to implement policies through the board room that Floridians reject at the ballot box.’
‘We are reasserting the authority of republican governance over corporate dominance and we are prioritizing the financial security of the people of Florida over whimsical notions of a utopian tomorrow,’ he said.
A BlackRock representative did not immediately comment.