Transcript
Oh yeah, live. Love that music from a free flow flavored Doritos. I don't like to read us. It's the well, you haven't tried the free flow flavored Doritos. So, Yeah, starting out stocking like it. Do you know it took me Being an adult to realize a Dorito, really. It's just a tortilla chip with flavoring on it. I didn't know that. Did, you know, it took me to being an adult to realize Doritos are just like a brand of Pepsi. Do you know what took me to be an adult to realize that there are other chips other than potato chips being from Maine? I didn't even know there were things are the potatoes, you know? It Being an adult. I'm actually not realized. Yeah, I know, I'm not kidding about. Any of it. Really is the ESG Industries. Only weakly Wok data podcast, featuring analyst whole, Matt mcgard a hell. That's me. Yeah. In today's big bag of ESG nuggets called October 18th 2023, bunch of ESG, headlines and anti-wolf Roundup from your favorite analysts hole in a word from the great Paul Hodgson from Skagen. Yeah, who is this gauge? Our show today is being sponsored by ESG or ESG Data Solutions. Provider Paul will jump on later to talk about director race and ethnicity. That sounds like a quick and easy topic. Yeah. No. That's hopefully, that'll be a topic that we can sum up in less than a minute. In the US. You can do that. Yes. Ready. All right. Do I need to play you in? Don't I, but we got here. We'll start with the story that I don't want to talk about, so maybe Matt can bail me out a bit. Marc Andreessen is getting raped over the coals for calling social responsibility. The enemy, I guess this dope dropped. He put on the internet, a techno Optimist Manifesto. I read it, I read the whole thing. Yeah, it's like 5,000 words, I guess one of the takeaways is that it sees a world of 50 billion. People settling other planets. It says we are the apex predator. The lightning works for us. What does that mean? Is that like a movie? I haven't seen no, but I love the narcissism. What do they do? What is that? And, you know, I really realize that everything from Silicon Valley is is this is a reference to some insipid pop culture. And it's something that they don't even get right because, you know, the both market and recent, and Elon Musk referred to George Orwell today, and they both are major anti-communist anti-socialist. Matt, George Orwell was a raving socialist. He's in fact, he was a militant socialist, like, he actually fought in Wars as a socialist, like, he enlisted. So these, so once again, like, we're just led by uneducated Dopey authoritarian Tech Bros like, that's all. It's so yeah, let's be clear. Also, how they became to their Authority, right? Because their narrative would be subverting democracy. We make their shareholders, no, no. Go back to the origin, right? Like we made smart Investments, we fostered. And like, you know, like the in The Crucible of Silicon Valley, the future of humanity, with things like Facebook, and Ai and social media, we are the smartest of the smart, the elitist of the elite. We represent true marriage, winners and losers, it was all meritocracy. It will have nothing to do with the fact that like they had all the advantages and might have just might have gotten just incredibly lucky enough to get super duper wealthy. And then push everyone around with. No, not to mention that the completely subverted, the Democratic process of whole of owning a public corporation of running a public corporation. Yeah, they really changed the Voting Rights and and having an eliminating all oversight over their terrible ideas. Not Listed in his list of enemies was dual class shares. Let's go. Let's get to that. He is a, he literally met. I mean, these are children. He literally has a section called a quote, the enemy unquote. Yeah, I mean, really, these are just all these Tech Bros. They live in a world that they're understanding was shaped by Star Wars the movie in 1977. Like, it's there that base and they're thinking it just pure good versus evil nonsense. But here's what the enemy section says, again. I'm quoting And this is what the ESG people are. You know, understandably pissed about because they're listed in there, our present Society has been subjected to a mass demoralization campaign for six decades. And when does that start Matt, like the Civil Rights, the civil rights movement that. But that is the 60 years ago is 1963, right? That is the almost, the exact start of the Civil Rights Movement. I mean, this guy is a complete asshole, I'm so sorry, I do. I love it. I love it when you get all anime. So angry he drives me crazy, that we as a society let this keep going. Like we don't put off guard rails. But anyway, he says a demoralization campaign for six decades against technology and against life. Like it's life. Yeah, I don't understand that which is odd because really what you're really again against is women and people of color and women are literally the givers of life but I don't want to get into that. No, come on. He says he calls this a demolition campaign under very Names, like existential risk. Sustainability. I'm literally meant these are. These are literally his enemies ESG. He actually writes the acronym sustainable development goals that have a specific. Having a goal for sustainable. Development is an enemy to life social responsibility. Honestly, stakeholder capitalism precautionary principle Of all things. This is coming from Silicon Valley that big the government to build them out. After Silicon Valley, Bank went under they beg, they beg for that. And finally, D growth in the limits of growth, whatever I feel like I'm kind of done with this. I will say, He also mentioned another enemy as being monopolies, which is ironic considered most Texas. Wow. Wow, this done. I'm done with this. If you want to go ahead, I can't stand it. Yeah. Are you though? Because, I mean, I guess the only thing that I would add in here is his list of credits. So the expectations at the end there, really citations because no, they're not. One of the enemies meant is the Ivory Tower so we hate like a demi so he wouldn't actually cite things properly. Actually writes quote in lieu of details and notes and citations read the work of these people and you too will become a techno Optimist, right? Like so he just lists names of people that you like, I'm guessing. We're definitely gonna find people like Tony Morrison and Bell hooks on that list. Yeah, 100%. So I did do the actual Deep dive. I went through, there's got to be, well, let's see. I have the actual number of names. There are quantifying, we're quantifying he listed 53 names and I think excluded the three like at People who are fake people, right? Like they're they can't find information about. He had three people who did was just like their Twitter. Follow people, he follows on sure. Yeah. Go ahead and his list. So the other 53 real human beings I went and Googled every single one of them and got their race ethnicity, to the extent that I could find it and whether they were male or female alive or dead, right? It turns out that to be a techno Optimist, the people that you would read are 90% male and 94% white. So that's really all we're talking about here. I'm actually impressed at 10% that list was women. I mean I mean honestly I'm honestly impressed like I'm not 100% of the women were white women, okay? But still like and not on the list. Okay, well that's just a little too obvious. Yeah, it was on it was a little too on the nose. What else you got? This was this was really exhausting stay in the world of stupid male CEOs. And again, I'm not, I'm just recording the headline, I don't make this stuff up. I mean, Matt this next story is is really maybe the all-time high or low. I don't know how you want to look at it for whichever, you know, they're both right. You know. I worry that when we started this company that with with, with the way that social media is and and they just the amount of content out there that that there wouldn't CEO's wife up and just wouldn't Do stupid stuff. Because why would you be an idiot in the public? Light right in the public because of US court, right? Not just because of us just in general but it just never stops are Asia's CEO. Tony Fernandez posts shirtless photo of himself, getting a massage during a management meeting and they're they're actually the photo of him being massaged by a woman wearing a hairnet and a mask rubbing his naked torso. I mean it's this I don't know what to say about this. I know the crazy thing to me is that the the headline for Business Insider says that this was this sparked debate, what's the debate here? Yeah, there's not a debate. What's that one? Yeah, I'm sorry, the headline doesn't do justice. A, the picture, which if you haven't seen search for Tony, Fernandez Air Asia, or don't in Google Images, or don't you'll get the picture. It's like the top picture now, but be this wasn't a screen. Shot from someone on the call. Who said, look at my inappropriate. Posted this on LinkedIn. He posted it himself. Not on x. Or like the the dregs of social media, but on LinkedIn, the most professional of social media, the one where people are talking about, like, their professional lives. And can I just say once again to the business press? And this is all the outlets is. Why do you always hide away from who these people are? I actually change the headline that the headline actually says, like this says Air Asia exec, why don't you name him? I mean, oh, shame every young female celebrity until the cows come home. Did I just say that? What was that mean? When the cows come home? I don't know what is his name is Tony, Fernandez, he's the CEO of you are Asia, is owned by tune. He is the executive chairman of tune, and he owns multiple companies, it's an entertainment company and he thought it would be cool and entertaining to show how chill he is getting a massage without a shirt on during a management. Ah, moving on. This is a good one. This is another one. Good for us, the music has stopped for the CEO of Goldman Sachs. That's David Solomon. DJ diesel amid reports. That the banks board was concerned his DJing sideline would distract him from his main job. Here's why I point this out we have actually said repeatedly that he is a great Target to lose his job. Why? Because our influencer data at free flow analytics, which suggests that he only controls 18% of board influence, which is low for CEO in the US and that's why the board had the ability to tell him to knock it. The fuck. Yeah, knock it. Knock it off. A teenage boy. Do your job here? This is this is a case study and how it's actually supposed to work. Because what happens is investors, higher board members, they to represent them and their interests, those board members, hire the management team really the CEO and then approves the rest of the management team and then hold them accountable to the Clusters. Now when your CEO has too much influence, the board doesn't really do that. But when they are DJ diesel, they absolutely 100% can go in and say this is an adult Corporation with adult investors. Stop playing Lollapalooza. Qantas, we've talked a lot about Qantas. Oh, do we have to do? What is only because it falls into kind of our world. This is actually a story about how the Qantas hangover is a headache for directors on other boards. This is really in our world and here's the proof. Qantas director Maxine Brenner received 17%. 17% protest, vote against her nomination on the board of Telstra. The only other person running was a who they are calling a lesser known director named Ming long received. Only 1% votes against. So there's no. It's here's what I like about this. Our whole ethos free flow analytics exists, to give you the names of the people who run these companies. Like the influence, they have the power they have, you know, the people you're buying people. If you're investing in a company, you're buying the people right? With the people. You are this very clearly is someone in Australia. Some 17% of investors in Australia, remembered the name of the person who sucked it, Qantas. One of the names of the people that's great and quickly, what you want, the one that they should really be targeting? Is outgoing chair, Richard goiter. I'm gonna remind everyone that he is also on the board of Woodside Energy Group. Our data, Matt, which suggests that he is. By far the worst performer overall coming in an average across all of our metrics at 311 and the rest of the board is at 5:30 won. So there's no reason not to kick this guy out of there. Come on, I will say on the flip side of that, good news is the bad. Is that 83% of investors said? Nah, she's cool. What? Cause I didn't, they didn't do their due diligence. They didn't. Apparently, they didn't read anything and they just said, yeah, whoever you want to find a management team. A couple of glass Cliff stories, and then I'll hand it over to you. Matt, first Tupperware, Tupperware hiring, its second female CEO, I mean, of all places. I'm sorry, but Tupperware, only two, female CEOs, in 77 years Laurie and Goldman is its new CEO. And now it's yesterday, Tupperware has been through the wringer recently, barely surviving a tumultuous era that saw it run out of money. Secure a life-saving debt, restructuring, float and do it as a meme stock. But I mean, talk about a glass Cliff, but, but this is the woman who to great success was the CEO over there at Spanx for 12 years. So if anyone can turn around her, but there's a nice glass Cliff for you there. I mean that, That's not it's not as clear as Linda yaccarino glass. Cliff like she can. It's like a translucent glass Cliff. She can like see that there's a fuzzy, bottom underneath her butt. Linda aquino's is like to you know it's Crystal Clear. She's basically looking at the void and how about this glass, Cliff scenario? I mean, this is like, I don't even know. We gotta come up with a term with this. And this is a, the headline is like many women Kim Ang success didn't keep her standing with the Miami Marlins. So, this is Kim Ang She was the general manager over there at the Miami Marlins. She is stepped down yesterday because despite the team having its best record in over two decades, they are appointing a man directly above her, so she was fed up. I really, I don't know what you would call this, just for some context. The year before she was hired, the team finished with 57 wins and 105 losses. The worst in the league and this year, the team won 84 games to only 78 losses. So, she a huge Improvement. Even attendance was up almost 50%. So, I and talk about qualifications. She was the assistant GM, two of baseball's most successful franchises the Yankees and Dodgers. So what, how do you define this glass? Cliff moment. What do you say about this? I mean she succeeded Matt and they still bought on a man in above her. Be well they brought in a man because she succeeded what are we call them clean up, right? I don't. This isn't this like a glass flip, right. Like flipping a house, right? This is like the Vivic. Ramos Swami. House of idiot. See, I don't know what this Is what I think it's I think it's a glass flip. She went into the house. It was a total mess, she had to be the janitor. He cleaned it up, she knocked it down to its studs rebuilt. It now it's a beautiful gleaming house and what happens someone says, thank you. Give me the keys. So and she's forced out. So shouldn't Marc Andreessen and Vivek ramaswamy over, stripe Asset Management. Shouldn't they put all of their attention at this antimatter soccer team in the Miami Marlins. They should focus all of their venom, write their enemies. All right, here's what I got. Let me play myself in though. Is I love the, I love the music. Oh, it's always brings me down. That music. I love it. Here's what I got. I have three quick things for you. Number one, a boredom alert. You ESG regulation still suck. So you as is proposing some new regulations. Well, that are going out to comment, the eu's proposing. Now that anyone who buys. Yes, she ratings ESG ratings have new regs. The good news. Is anyone buying any ESG rating from a big provider? Now must also buying ESG rating from a small provide us. This is a story from responsible investor hat tip to Khalid Aziz and for sending it to me, the the buyers who are seeking more than one ESG rating should choose at least one issue, rating provider with a market share below, five us, why can't Come up with an ESG rating quickly. I'm saying everyone in Europe should just buy free flow analytics done. You've got you've got, you've done your due diligence here, but there's also some stupid in here because instead of regulating things like credit ratings, the way they write, regulate ESG ratings, we're holding is G ratings to a much higher standard course including they are disallowing issue raters to do any Consulting. I don't have a deep problem with that, but okay, come on. Everybody else is doing it. Yeah, they are forcing ESG providers. To provide more information on how they pay their own taxes because they don't want like some tax evasion. Meanwhile, you have story after story about how the Swiss banks are just evading taxes permanently like that state, right? Yeah. But is Gee reading is providers. Are going to be held to a higher standard. This is more exhausting And then finally, they are actually actually forcing ratings providers. There's a suggestion, msci has come out pretty strong against this, that they ESG ratings providers. Not charge fees that don't quote reflect the costs, Effectively, they're saying you shouldn't really make a profit on ESG ratings is kind of what they're saying. It should be okay with that. I don't care. What do I care? We're not making a profit. I don't like that at all, because I want to make a profit. What am I doing, right? I didn't know. We could make a process that possible. Yeah, no. Well, we never will know, um, what else you got? Second thing, second thing I want to talk about is, it's not, it's an anti-woke update. Oh, But it's not the anti-woke anymore. Okay. The update is it's the parallel economy. All right, well it's like a new name for divestment I suppose. Is that what it is? So imagine if you had to basically like invent. Nothing new, just redo everything that exists in the current economy that capitalism made, right? Like, we all hate because the capital. I like this. Yeah, you reinvented. I like this in a parallel economy. And you make it with Les Brown people engaged in it. That's all this series. I'm ready for the US to split in the two countries. We can keep all the hospitals and the scientists, and all the Netflix, and all the fun stuff and they can make their own beer and their own scientists, because they don't need scientists because they hate vaccines. So there are no signs. Yeah, there are not like this. This is fine with this is this is not. I'm ready us making this up. We know that Peter Thiel invested in strive Asset Management that's like the creation of, you know, part of like the Alternative to ESG and ISS glass, Lewis, whatever the hell that ended up being. This is an actual Thing by this headline. Tucker Carlson's online Media company just raised 15 million in seed Capital through a group called 1789 Capitol. Yeah? That that group unfortunately that group is led by Omid Malik. Yeah. Who is also the person who brought you the the SPAC of Public Square Public Square, which is the anti-walk marketplace. This is even worse than Mark in recent Mark. Andreasen is fetishizing the time right? Before the Civil Rights Movement started? This guy is fetishizing a time even when slavery was legal. I mean, right? Let's, let's celebrate 1789. From 1789 website. Quote, they invest in three things. One is anti-esg. One is they invoke? They deglobalization like they they want local hyper-local, local stuff, whatever. And basically nationalism, they but they invite nationalism, okay? And the third is the new, what? I think the new word for anti-walk is the replication slash parallel economy. That's their that's their way for us to come up with a good ideas and then they can make up make their own expensive beer. And then finally I want to take you out on this. All right, come, which is five companies. I hate for decades you and I talked about how much we don't like these companies. That now we have to defend. We are defending well that we hate little. See about that. Go ahead. Number five, righty? Yeah, Goldman Sachs wait. What? Why, okay, what because DJ diesel is no more. That was like, I loved hating on you like What I don't want. Good things to happen and you really is that this is a copy of the movie Footloose, they're taking away dancing in the halls of the boardroom at Goldman Sachs. This is terrible. This is good governance. What's Kevin Bacon the rescue this company. Now I have to defend the Goldman Sachs board but here's some other ones, ready? Yeah. Now I have to defend number four Disney. I know this one's the most uncomfortable. I mean, I, I've hated Disney forever and now I feel like I have to be their friend. I mean, forget about them, like, screwing up and then fighting the don't say, gay, Bill, and like all their trials, tribulations, with Ron DeSantis. These are the two headlines that I saw just this week headline. Number one, the daily wire is making its own Snow. White movie to counter woke. Disney film. Starring Latina that sounds terrible. Why would you realize like what their what they don't like about the new snot White movie? Aside from saying it's whoa, is that Snow White is not. Quote unquote white. They're really upset about that. You have to be a real true racist to be angry at a beloved, beloved American corporation for remaking, its own movie in the way it wants. They're not destroying original copies of the original Snow White. They're just remaking its own intellectual Capital. That's how racist you have to be to care about that but this one drove me off. The Jump, The Shark Cliff, which is new Bambi cause conservatives to cry woke, why is? Because remake may go easier on. Bambi's mom, I don't means I don't, I've never seen snowy or Bambi, what does that mean? Well here's what that means he'll. Bambi's mom gets killed in the first scene in Bambi. It's very sad and there, but but here's the problem with this, thanks for spoilers. The movie hasn't been written yet. The worry, they're not going to kill. Bambi's mom, that's what the word about. Here's the quote from the article, quote Piers Morgan host of peers Morgan. Uncensored considered Bambi, the latest victim of woke War culture, criticizing the films writers, for potentially altering how the film portrays the death of Bambi's mother. Because it hasn't happened yet, this is actually getting airtime in anti-wolf. And it doesn't exist. It's in pre-production. It hasn't even finished being written. Forget, casts or animated or launch date. In fact, Tony Laren. The idiot anti-wolf said, I'm waiting for this Bambi remake to have a trans deer or maybe the mother dies from climate change. That's what they're literally talking about it. Now, something that doesn't exist. It doesn't even so much at hand or Marc Andreessen, new Manifesto. I think she probably enjoyed that. Like that. Yeah, number three Harvard. I know Harvard Harvard. Yeah, because of this headline, woke Central. Ron DeSantis wouldn't want a doctor from Harvard. Really talked about that. Yeah, no, I have to defend Harvard, not being woke. The man who went to Harvard is against Harvard. He went to fuck. You actually went there. Graduated not like Mark Zuckerberg. Number two Victoria's Secret. Oh, What really is defend them? Because Victoria's Secret although the headlines look like they might be going in the other way. It's well he's pulling Victoria's Secret. The Jerk of a Founder is pulling money from Harvard? That's correct. Yeah. How they responded to the war in Israel? Yeah. This headline Victoria's Secret bet on Megan Rapinoe. Woke marketing push miserably backfires. They put they had ads with women who did not look like Giselle. Okay. They're they're saying it like that. This is this is now they're like no more. We're banned we don't want to buy their boycott, they have proof already that that campaign failed. I mean, she's one of the most famous athletes in the world. I mean, why how do you started in June? And they announced that they have a 5% pullback in sales from last year and they're blaming it on Meghan, Rabbitt. And that's not the reason like, come on. No, I have to go out and Leslie wexner's terrible. We're organization. I have to go defend. I know for a fact having a teenage daughter that that the holy generation. They don't like, they don't care. They don't like Victoria's Secret. They don't like anything a stands for. They don't shop there. So there's nothing to do with one of the world's best soccer. Not only because it's horrible, but because it is uncomfortable and it's terribly stupid. Like stupid. It's stupid. It's a male's version of women's underwear. Yeah. Finally Black Rock. Oh, Black Rock. Yeah, they're easy to because of This headline, Texas anti-wolf fossil fuel law to be tested by BlackRock funds in Texas, a number, they passed a law that said, BlackRock discriminates against fossil fuels and you can only use BlackRock funds. If you've done your due diligence and it's in your best fiduciary interests. So what happened? The Pension funds? In Texas said we did our due diligence and we want to include BlackRock. Oh, the state's comptroller said you should reconsider what you should reconsider that. If there's any alternative to Black Rock, you, you need to consider it well. So now, what he's effectively doing is saying You you? I don't care any alternative, he's overriding any alternative any alternative. He basically is saying, pick not BlackRock. Sorry this is a against Black Rock. I'm sorry, I just bizarre. Yeah, I agree with you, but So those are five companies that now I hate, but now I have to defend Paul's here. He's been knocking on the door. You haven't heard of him. I've been muting my mic but let's bring him. Paul Paul calm down tell us stuff. Yeah, Thomas down, here we go. Hello there. Paul Hudson from ESG with skh statistic of the week, So, we spent a couple of weeks looking at gender on the board and in management and amongst employees. So I thought that this week we would turn to race and ethnicity among directors. Now, there has been a steady growth in the proportion of companies, disclosing the ethnicity of their directors, which is the first thing that you need, if you want to do some data analysis, Back in 2018, it was 3.8% of companies made any disclosures about direct ethnicity that went up. The biggest jump was in 2020 up from 7.8 to 27.7% but it's continued to climb since then. And now almost 2/5 of companies disclosed the race or ethnicity of their directors. Now disclosing it is one thing. But what race or ethnicity, are they disclosing? Well, the data tells us that white Caucasian directors. Occupy. 45th of Each board on average as a percentage of the total that's been hovering around 179% for the last six years. It's dropped a little last year from 80% to 79.1%, but it's really hovering at that level. Um, shockingly enough. The proportion of African-American directors has actually fallen during this time period from 2018 to 2023, despite efforts to increase the ethnic diversity of boards. Back. In 2018, it was 10.9%, it Rose briefly to 11.6% in 2019, but now it's Fallen back to 8.1%. Shockingly enough. All so The proportion of latinx Or Hispanic, directors has actually fallen during this period, as well. Again from 7.5 percent, in 2018, down to 3.8% in 2023, The only ethnic group that has seen an increase. In the proportion of directors on boards is Asian Hawaiian or Pacific Islander which rose from 3.3% in 2818 to 8.5% in 2023. so, we clearly have Made some progress on increasing the number of women on boards. But increasing the ethnic diversity of directors, appears to be something. At least in the US, that is beyond us. So this is Paul Hudson from s gauge, statistic of the week signing off. That was a thing. It was not so much. That we are. What are we? We are the We're part of the, the mass demoralization campaign because we're because we're reporting on them. That were the more demoralizing them, that's David Ross. I'm your anus Solomon at mascardi. You heard from Paul Hodge in the great, lodge your ESG. Solutions. Provider. We are free float. We are also sponsored by free. Play analytics.com, go there. Get the data that we talk about until Friday when we wrap up the week. Good. Bye.