Arizona Treasurer Kimberly Yee announced that the state would be divesting hundreds of millions of state funding away from the far-left asset management company BlackRock, due to the company’s support for “ESG” (environmental, social, and corporate governance) policies.
As reported by Breitbart, Yee released a statement declaring that her office has already “divested more than $543 million from BlackRock money market funds and reduced our direct exposure to BlackRock by 97% this year.” She accused the company of moving “away from its fiduciary duty in general as an asset manager,” and instead focusing more on “political activism.”
Yee said that she ordered the divestment after the state’s Investment Risk Management Committee (IRMC) discovered that BlackRock CEO Larry Fink had, in recent years, been sending annual letters “dictating to businesses in the United States to follow his personal political beliefs.”
“We will continue to reduce our remaining exposure in BlackRock over time in a phased in approach that takes into consideration safe and prudent investment strategy that protects the taxpayers,” Yee’s statement continued.
Multiple states led by Republicans have divested hundreds of millions of dollars from BlackRock in protest of the company’s support for far-left policies, and efforts to pressure other private companies into doing the same. Florida recently divested over $2 billion from the company, while Louisiana withdrew $794 million and Missouri pulled out $500 million.
ESG is an international practice of imposing left-wing social and economic policies on private companies, with a focus on increasing so-called “diversity” in hiring, as well as pushing for more “green” energy instead of traditional fossil fuels, among other things.