BlackRock CEO Larry Fink suggests that corporations should make a positive contribution to society apart from boosting the bottomline.

Olivia London

2018-01-09 08:33:00 Tue ET

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink emphasizes his key conviction that public corporations should make a positive contribution to society apart from boosting the bottomline. Society now demands that each public or private company serves a social purpose. To prosper over time, each company must not only deliver financial performance, but each company must also demonstrate how it makes a positive contribution to society. This kind reminder is a major watershed moment on Wall Street and raises questions about the unique nature of capitalism.

The Fink letter serves as a key lightning rod of stakeholder-value maximization for institutional investors such as BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, Vanguard, Charles Schwab, Fidelity, Allianz, State Street, PIMCO, PGIM, and so on. Key stakeholders include not only shareholders but also employees, customers, creditors, suppliers, regulators, and intellectual property assignees.

The government may fail to prepare for the future generations on socioeconomic issues such as retirement, infrastructure, automation, and education. As a result, society has to increasingly rely on the private sector in order to better respond to broader societal challenges. If a company cannot engage with the community with a crystal-clear sense of social purpose, the company ultimately loses its license to operate for better stakeholder value. For instance, some institutional investors and activist shareholders require Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon to consider the detrimental effects of mobile devices on children. Mutual funds and insurance firms such as AIG and Berkshire Hathaway can monitor whether energy companies such as ExxonMobil, BP, Phillips 66, and Saudi Aramco help mitigate environmental degradation. Also, key billionaires join the Giving Pledge campaign to curb global economic inequality. For instance, the Gates Foundation continues to help eradicate preventable diseases due to malaria, polio, Guinea worm, and smallpox in Africa and the Middle East. Nowadays, each company has to serve a social purpose in order to attract capital flows from asset management firms.

 


If any of our AYA Analytica financial health memos (FHM), blog posts, ebooks, newsletters, and notifications etc, or any other form of online content curation, involves potential copyright concerns, please feel free to contact us at service@ayafintech.network so that we can remove relevant content in response to any such request within a reasonable time frame.

Blog+More

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin indicates that there is a good conceptual trade agreement between China and the U.S. in regard to intellectual property protection and enforcement.

James Campbell

2019-10-05 07:27:00 Saturday ET

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin indicates that there is a good conceptual trade agreement between China and the U.S. in regard to intellectual property protection and enforcement.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin indicates that there is a good conceptual trade agreement between China and the U.S. in regard to intellectual property pr

+See More

AYA free finbuzz analytic report on the U.S. top tech titans FAMGA Spring-Summer 2020

Chanel Holden

2020-05-05 09:31:00 Tuesday ET

AYA free finbuzz analytic report on the U.S. top tech titans FAMGA Spring-Summer 2020

Our fintech finbuzz analytic report shines fresh light on the fundamental prospects of U.S. tech titans Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon (F.A.

+See More

Addendum on empirical tests of multi-factor models for asset return prediction

Rose Prince

2022-03-05 09:27:00 Saturday ET

Addendum on empirical tests of multi-factor models for asset return prediction

Addendum on empirical tests of multi-factor models for asset return prediction Fama and French (2015) propose an empirical five-factor asset pricing mode

+See More

The Economist digs deep into the political economy of U.S. government shutdown over 3 days in January 2018.

Apple Boston

2018-01-13 08:39:00 Saturday ET

The Economist digs deep into the political economy of U.S. government shutdown over 3 days in January 2018.

The Economist digs deep into the political economy of U.S. government shutdown over 3 days in January 2018. In more than 4 years since 2014, U.S. government

+See More

Nobel Laureate Robert Shiller's long-term stock market indicator points to a recent peak.

Apple Boston

2018-09-17 12:40:00 Monday ET

Nobel Laureate Robert Shiller's long-term stock market indicator points to a recent peak.

Nobel Laureate Robert Shiller's long-term stock market indicator points to a recent peak. His cyclically-adjusted P/E ratio (or CAPE) accounts for long-

+See More

Michael Bloomberg criticizes that the Trump administration's tax reform is a trillion dollar blunder.

Fiona Sydney

2017-12-09 08:37:00 Saturday ET

Michael Bloomberg criticizes that the Trump administration's tax reform is a trillion dollar blunder.

Michael Bloomberg, former NYC mayor and media entrepreneur, criticizes that the Trump administration's tax reform is a trillion dollar blunder because i

+See More