“Regulators need to catch up to the reality that the growth and concentration of the asset management industry has fundamentally reshaped how public companies — including listed banks — make decisions,” said Natalia Renta, a senior policy counsel at the Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund.
Today, 38 labor unions, investors, and advocates submitted a letter to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in support of a proposed rule that would increase oversight of asset managers with substantial voting power in banks. The proposal would bolster FDIC oversight when asset managers gain control of over 10 percent of voting securities of bank holding companies with FDIC-supervised subsidiaries.
BlackRock and Vanguard, the world’s two largest asset managers, voted against a shareholder proposal requesting an independent audit of Amazon’s notoriously dangerous warehouse working conditions for the third year in a row, according to recently-disclosed proxy voting data. This vote reflects a troubling pattern of powerful asset managers using their immense power over public companies to stand in the way of shareholder efforts to force corporate boards and executives to address very real financial risks.
Cross-posted from AFR’s Medium page. Can BlackRock Benefit from Inside Information from Fed Facilities? The Fed’s Agreement with BlackRock Raises Questions about Inside Information In order to respond to the ongoing pandemic, the Federal Reserve has created several facilities to purchase financial securities in order