By Davide Barbuscia and Lananh Nguyen
NEW YORK (Reuters) -Larry Fink, chief executive of the world’s biggest asset manager BlackRock Inc, on Wednesday defended his company’s energy investments after facing backlash from lawmakers critical of the company’s stance on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues.
“Facts are not important with some sub-groups in this country,” Fink told attendees at the Institute of International Finance conference in Washington, citing the company’s $181 billion invested in U.S. energy companies.
“I’m now being attacked equally by the left and the right so I’m doing something right, I hope. I don’t know. It’s painful, but you know what? We’re moving forward.”
Blackrock is ready to fund U.S. energy pipelines as soon as the projects receive government approvals, he said.
The company is one of the largest financiers of pipelines in the world, investing in pipelines in Texas, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Energy security is in focus following the latest move by OPEC+ to cut its oil production target over U.S. objections.
BlackRock has faced criticism from many sides in the debate on low-carbon fuels, with environmentalists protesting it does too little to press for change at fossil fuel portfolio companies, and Republican U.S. politicians accusing it of boycotting energy stocks.
States including Texas, Arkansas, West Virginia, have targeted the firm for its ESG investment strategies. Louisiana said this month it will pull $794 million out of BlackRock’s funds.
Fink was speaking ahead of BlackRock’s release of its third-quarter results on Oct. 13, when it is expected to show a fall in quarterly revenue.
Financial markets have been slammed this year as global central banks have raised interest rates to fight stubbornly high inflation. Fink, however, said declines in stocks and bonds valuations present opportunities for investors, and that his firm was witnessing a big interest in bonds. “Other people’s grief is somebody else’s opportunity,” he said.
Citing factors such as an acceleration in building new supply chains, which were hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, Fink said measures to counter inflation may, in the long run, weigh on price pressures.
“I just started to see more threads of declining inflation, but they’re not in the numbers yet,” he said.
(Reporting by Davide Barbuscia and Lananh Nguyen; Editing by David Gregorio and Lincoln Feast)