“The good health of financial markets depends on continuous interaction between companies and their shareholders”wrote on March 26, Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, the world’s number one asset manager, in his latest letter to investors – an annual meeting closely followed in financial circles around the world.
In terms of dialogue with shareholders, Mr. Fink would undoubtedly have hoped for better than the latest episode involving the group he has led since 1988. Because he is used to attacks against heavyweights on the stock market. which is attacking him today: Bluebell Capital Partners, an activist fund based in London, whose targets, in recent years, have included the mining group Glencore, the chemist Bayer and, in France, Kering, Worldline and Danone. At the latter, Bluebell’s attacks had largely contributed to the ousting of CEO Emmanuel Faber in 2021.
At BlackRock, the fund is today calling for a modification of the statutes to separate the functions of president from those of general manager, and, at the same time, the appointment of a truly “independent” president. For Bluebell, the concentration of power in the hands of a CEO creates an inherent conflict of interest because the CEO acts under his own authority as chairman.
Multiple acquisitions
This lack of independent oversight, he continues, results in “multiple contradictions and inconsistencies between the ESG strategy [environnement, social et gouvernance] de BlackRock and its implementation ». The group, which manages some 10,000 billion dollars (9,200 billion euros) of investments, would therefore be incapable, according to Bluebell, of promoting, in the companies of which it is a shareholder, the management principles that it defends.
So many arguments rejected by BlackRock, in a response made public Thursday April 4. Calling on its shareholders to reject Bluebell’s requests at the general meeting of May 15, the American assures that its current organization is on the contrary “a key element” compliance with commitments made to shareholders.
Far from creating a conflict of interest, the mandate of CEO exercised by Larry Fink since the founding of the company would thus be the formula “the most appropriate and effective”and one of the reasons for the group’s success, from the 9,000% profitability assured to shareholders since the IPO in 1999 to the multiple acquisitions concluded over the years.
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