As the Financial Times pointed out, a vast amount of deals occurred recently that involved ESG rating agencies: the demand for sustainability and corporate governance data has risen among investors and regulators. Today, Financial Times announced that two of the three main credit rating agencies...
Climate change, Disinvestment / 17.09.2019
Fossil fuel divestment has ‘zero’ climate impact, says Bill Gates
Mr. Gates told the FT that investors would have better results in promoting progress and mitigating climate change, through funding innovative businesses such as Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, instead of divesting from fossil fuels. Already in the past Bill Gates has branded fossil fuel divestment “a false...
Japanese companies have set up a consortium on September 16, 2019 to help improving the reporting of financial impacts of climate-related risks in order to enhance green investments and face climate change issues. 172 Japanese companies (including Mazda Motor, Nomura and Sony) are now supporting...
In order to cut extreme poverty and help farmers in facing the growing effects of climate change we do need to work urgently on agricultural productivity, according to research published by the World Bank on September 16, 2019. Effects of climate change are tangible in agriculture and...
Yale program on climate change communication latest report reveals that seven in ten Americans think global warming is happening. But data show that three out of ten say "it is due mostly to natural changes in the environment", showing a widespread scepticism on the subject. Another survey by...
This is not the first case US moves back in environmental regulations under Trump administration. We already tackled the issue of methane emission limits in this article , while this is the turn of water. During his campaign, Trump has already announced the intention to repeal the...
According to the FT article by Robert Harding as of September 12, 2019, there is an economic case for fighting pollution to boost productivity, since the evidence increasingly suggests that particulates do not just penetrate the heart and lungs but also the brain. Whereas fighting climate change...
The We Company’s executives, investors and advisers are discussing curbing WeWork voting power of founder Adam Neumann and removing his co-founder wife from a role in succession planning. Working towards its IPO, WeWork has faced criticism on its corporate governance standards, as well as over its business...
Tax Avoidance / 12.09.2019
Empty corporate shells in tax havens undermine tax collection in advanced, emerging market, and developing economies
Tax avoidance is a big problem Governments are facing nowadays. "A large proportion of the world’s stock of foreign direct investment is “phantom” capital, designed to minimise companies’ tax liabilities rather than financing productive activity" claims Financial Times, introducing the results of a research on...
Corporate Governance, Stock Exchanges / 11.09.2019
HKSE unsolicited bid on LSE
Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX) has announced on early September 2019 a £30bn bid for the London Stock Exchange (LSEG); the offer is a mix of cash and shares. The bid comes after LSE CEO David Schwimmer announced the intention to buy the data and trading business...
“The bill for the UK’s payment protection insurance scandal has climbed past £50bn"says Financial Times. And this, as written in the article, makes it one of biggest consumer mis-selling scandals of all time. The scandal involved mortgage and credit card customers’ shadowy insurances that were enormously...
Thursday, August 29th was the deadline for the claims of the longest financial scandal in the UK. We are talking about the selling of shadowy payments protection insurance (PPI) on loans, credit cards and mortgages that occurred between mid 90s and 2010, the year when supposedly the...
Activist fund Elliott Management Corp acquired a $3.2 billion stake in AT&T Inc, making AT&T one of the three largest companies after Apple and Microsoft to be targeted by activist shareholders. AT&T acquired Time Warner in 2018, gaining control of HBO and CNN, and DirecTV in 2015 among the others, and appears as a conglomerate with strong differences...
MSCI Inc. acquired a 100% stake in data analytics firm Carbon Delta AG through its subsidiary MSCI Barra Sarl. "Founded in 2015, Carbon Delta is a global leader for climate change scenario analysis. Together, MSCI and Carbon Delta will create an extensive climate risk assessment and...