From Bloomberg via Yahoo Finance:
A group of Wall Street giants has decided to sit out one of the industry’s biggest coalitions: the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero.
GFANZ, whose members oversee $130 trillion, is finding it can’t attract some of the top names in money management. Among them, Pacific Investment Management Co., Fidelity Investments, Capital Group, T. Rowe Price Group Inc., PGIM, Northern Trust Asset Management and the fund management units of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley.
In total, the eight holdout firms Bloomberg News contacted represent over $17 trillion in assets, which is more than the combined gross domestic product of the European Union. Asked why they opted out, they pointed to their fiduciary duty and to a reluctance to be bound by external rules.
Read More: Blackstone, Apollo Among Holdouts Snubbing New Finance Club
Mark Carney, the co-chair of GFANZ, has spent much of 2021 trying to appeal to the financial behemoths steering capital flows to commit to decarbonization. He’s sought to cater his arguments to a community that’s laser-focused on making money. In a recent interview, the 56-year-old assured skeptics that a commitment to net-zero carbon emissions needn’t hurt their bottom lines. “Certainly not on a risk-adjusted basis,” Carney said.
But his efforts have fallen flat in some key circles. And even though Carney occupies a seat on Pimco’s advisory board, the $2.2 trillion asset manager insists that joining would be a dereliction of its fiduciary duty. (Pimco’s owner, Allianz SE, is a member of three GFANZ sub-alliances.)
Ryan Korinke, managing director and global head of sustainability at Pimco, said the firm “strongly supports climate and sustainability-related initiatives.” It also offers a “full range of strategies and products” that allow it to manage client money in a manner that’s consistent with net-zero goals, he said, describing Pimco as “a leader” in incorporating environmental, social and governance considerations into its investment process.
“However, as a fiduciary, we don’t believe it’s appropriate to make specific commitments on our clients’ behalf, especially given the complexity of the long-term challenges ahead,” Korinke said. For that reason, Pimco hasn’t joined GFANZ, he said....
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A couple very different previous posts on Mr. Carney (we have quite a few):
Climate/Energy: "Mark Carney, man of destiny, arises to revolutionize society. It won't be pleasant"
In the post immediately below—Natural Gas and Net Zero Carbon: Reality Intrudes—, Izabella Kaminska links to a Financial Times opinion piece that took then-Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney to task for his pronouncements on the global warming - economics nexus.
Which of course reminded me of something, in this case the fact that our last (July) post on Carney was a real get-a-room slobberfest of a puff piece on the double guv'nor (Canada too):
"Mark Carney Was the World’s Rock-Star Banker. Now He’s Ready for His Encore"
However, just as the 2015 FT opinion letter pointed out, there is a much darker, much bleaker interpretation that can be taken from the thinking of Mr. Carney, now Vice Chairman and Head of Impact Investing at Brookfield Asset Management.
From Canada's National Post, June 5:
What Carney ultimately wants is a technocratic dictatorship justified by climate alarmism
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