Transcript
Live from the ESG waterfall Factory. It's yet another Monday edition of business pants. Where I get to say the words, Elon Musk once again. Joined as always by nobody just as mother nature, always truly intended. And today's ESG headband called March 6 2020 23, sexy story update and a wal greens, Deep dive. Before we get to our main story, let's run over a bunch of the ESG related news headlines over the past few days. Gender pay Gap could cost the world economy 7 trillion dollars closing. The gender gap in labor force participation in the gender gap in management in oecd countries can raise global. Economic activity by approximately 7%. Or about 7 trillion dollars. In today's dollars, according to a report written by Moody's Analytics. World Bank said, gender biases and inequalities that have placed women in low-wage occupations contribute to the gender wage Gap. Second Norfolk, Southern Train derails in Ohio. That's right, this incident comes about a month. After East Palestine crash. and, Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw skips. Second Town Hall after Ohio. Toxic train derailment. There you go. CEO Alan Shaw remember that name Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw skips his second Town Hall. How about this one? Boeing CEO. David Calhoun favorite here on this show, business pants, he just missed out on a seven million dollar bonus but he's still got a raise. Really. Seriously. Even without the seven million dollar bonus Calhoun's. Total compensation package went up 1.4 million dollars to 22.5 and 2022. Think about. It didn't even hit. All of the targets needed to earn this huge bonus and he's still gets a raise. So I asked you when everyone else out there. What's the point, what is the point of these CEO pay packages? What the hell is going on? REI workers in Cleveland vote to join the retail wholesale and department store Union. A Twitter engineer says, at least two bodyguards, accompany Elon Musk around Twitter headquarters, even to the bathroom, the engineer said, the bodyguards are tall and bulky. ExxonMobil is accused of failing to protect workers after five nooses. That's right. Five new seasons were found at its Louisiana chemical plant according to the equal employment opportunity commission who filed. The suit? Exxon Mobil. Did not protect workers from racial discrimination. Facebook and Google are handing over user data to help police prosecute abortion Seekers one, legal expert said, platforms, May cooperate with police even if they're not legally required to, it's worth pointing out that both Facebook and Google are essentially dictatorships. Facebook led by One Man, Mark Zuckerberg Google led by two men, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, And that brings us to our last story, which will go deeper on today, calls to boycott Walgreens grow as Pharmacy. Confirms, it will not sell abortion pills in 20 States, including somewhere, it remains legal, so let's get into it. Let's discuss the headline. Last month, 20 Republican Attorneys, General told Walgreens, it could face legal action. If it sold abortion pills in some states, a wall green spokesperson confirmed, it will not distribute the abortion pill, my Prestone in any of those states that group includes Alaska, Iowa, Kansas and Montana. Where the procedure and medications for abortions are largely still legal Walgreens, Walgreens the FDA announced in January that retail farmer sees would be allowed to distribute the pills to those with the prescription. The pills previously were only accessible through doctors or mail order farmers. At the time, Walgreens told reporters that it was working to become FDA certified to sell abortion pills in the state where they are legal, Walgreens all, so confirmed that it still intends to become an FDA certified seller of the pills. And we'll Distribute the pills only in those jurisdictions where it is legal and operationally feasible. That last part that's troubling to me, operationally feasible, the sun's like a political dive to me. CVS Rite Aid and other major pharmacies have not yet commented on whether they'll be providing abortion pills and states that signed the letter, Illinois, governor JB pritzker plans to meet with Walgreens CEO, Ross, Brewer about the decision. This was due to occur on Friday afternoon. There have been no reports about how that meeting went and what they talked about JB pritzker. The governor tweeted women Across the Nation will be denied their right. To Access healthcare. They are legally entitled to because of this awful, corporate decision Walgreens must rethink this policy. To all the other Pharmacy providers, we will stand with you. So you can provide this life-saving care. A reminder to who JB pritzker is, he's an American not only is he, the governor of Illinois is an American billionaire, businessman. He is a member of the wealthy pritzker family, which owns the worldwide Hotel chain Hyatt. The pritzkers are based in Chicago. We talk a lot about the family involved with the Chicago business Mafia recently. On the show, we discussed his sister Penny pritzker who sits on the board at Microsoft. So let's talk a little bit about Walgreens, this is Walgreens boots Alliance and what led me to cover this story. Today is not only my general outrage, but the peculiar fact that Walgreens is one of the few Fortune 500 companies that is led by a woman, right? Which completely blows up our narrative hand over the leadership, to all women. And let's get this Society on track, of course, this disheartening defies the logic there, But does it really? This is what I wanted to look into how much power does. Rosalind Brewer really have Walgreens. Here's what I found at Walgreens. The executive chair in largest shareholder and former CEO was a man named Stefano pessina. Let me tell you who Stefano pessina is in 1977. Took over his family's pharmaceutical wholesaler later, renamed Alliance. Okay. So he owned Alliance. Remember the name, Walgreens boots Alliance so Walgreens current executive chair and largest shareholder. Stephano his family owned Alliance in 2006. They merged with boots group, okay? And in 2007, Stefano pessina took Alliance boots private in a 22 billion dollar deal and then in 2014, Walgreens bought Alliance boots, right? The Entity control by Stefano pessina creating the new entity. We know today called Walgreens boots Alliance So effectively Walgreens executive chair and its largest shareholder currently at 17% of shares effectively. He's one of the founders of Walgreens boots Alliance. He's not technically a Founder but he's a founder of two thirds of the entity. So this is a big deal. And here's another side note. Which is completely bizarre to me. I've never seen this before. Executive chair at Walgreens boots. Alliance Stefano pessina is married to the company's CEO to the company's Chief Operating Officer Ornella Barra. I've never seen this before the chair of the board of this company is married to one of the top five named executive officers at the company and how about this in their official bios on the Walgreens website, neither the bio of Stefano pessina or Ornella, Barra mentions this relationship. They do not mention that there are married to each other, okay? Some other bits and pieces about Stefano in 2018, he said that Walgreens wants to be seen as a health care company, okay? Not just a retailer, this concerning thought, right? A health care company, not giving access to abortion pills to women, even in states where it is, still legal health, care company. Think about that. I also found something that in 2015 the Labour party in the UK which is essentially a left wing party launched a stinging attack on Stefano pessina after he accused them of promoting catastrophic policies. So there's some evidence that the man who lives in Monte Carlo with his wife who was all the chief operating opportunity which he chairs. And effectively controls is potentially a conservative. So this started to make me understand Walgreens a bit more, okay. And let me tell you something else. Full disclosure, I went into our data board saber, Matrix data only available here at free flow. And at first, I saw what ended up being a data error data, error provided to us by one of our data suppliers. We have three major suppliers of ESG data here at free flow. One of them screwed up, Stefano pachinis shareholdings. So it's screwed up our data. Here's what I initially saw, I saw a company that had board level female influence of 63%, right? What that means is that the women on the board of Walgreens ostensibly held 63% of all the influence on the board. This, if it were true is a very high number in the Fortune 500 and this is where I really started to scratch the dandruff out of my head I was just, I couldn't get over. How the hell is a company led by women? And again, I realized that I can't immediately assume that all women. Not all female executives are necessarily. Activists for pro-choice, I can't immediately assume that. So forgive me for making that assumption, but again, I was floored by this. So that's why I decided to dig in to make sure that our data was accurate and in fact it's not accurate. We discover the data error from our supplier, we re-ran the numbers and as my intuition told me based on the biography of what I just told you about Stefano pessina. Again the largest shareholder at Walgreens, the executive chair, the founder of boots and Alliance married to the CEO. He actually has after we ran the numbers. 64 percent of the total influence at Walgreens CEO. Rosslyn Brewer. She only has 10%. Okay, this is Stefano pessina company. He controls the influence on the board. Know, not only that but he's also again married to one of the day-to-day operations leading executives. So I'd be hard-pressed to tell you that anyone else made this decision other than Stefano Pacino. Why did he make this decision? I don't know again, I don't know enough about the man, I don't know. Enough about the politics here. More will come out about the story. But I just wanted to be clear that this is not, in fact, a female-led company. Like it appears to be on paper. The board is controlled by Stefano pessina. The five women on the board, only control 30% of the influence. Stefano himself controls more than double that influence. And if you want to know more about this data, or if you even want to buy this data, please reach out to us a free flow and we'll walk you through it. I'm happy to walk you through it for free really so just get in touch with us. So this leads me to my last point is this situation at Walgreens boots Alliance. Is this a classic Boomerang CEO position? We have seen in the news recently. The high-profile incidents of CEO who get caught up in negative, PR swirls think, Bob chapek at Disney. These CEOs, who have hold very little influence. According to our data, Bob Iger had a gigantic amount of influence on the Disney board leaving a power vacuum that Bob chapek could not fill. They got rid of Bob chip, Bob Iger step back in. This is the same scenario here at Walgreens boots, Alliance. I wonder if Frost Brewer is not able to manage the political storm that is coming from the decision. I wonder if Walgreens boots Alliance. Won't be the next company for a boomerang CEO. The boomerang, of course being Stefano pessina who is a former CEO in which Step back into the role. The only problem here is that Stefano happens to be 81 years old, which is quite old for CEO of a Fortune 500 company. But what? About his wife or Nella Barra. She's only 69 years old, she's the CEO. Could she be the next CEO of Walgreens boots Alliance or well, the company fulfill one of our other CEO prophecies and higher maybe a Southeast Asian CEO to come in and quiet down the storm. Lots of questions there at Walgreens boots Alliance. I'm a very unhappy customer of Walgreens today, already rethinking where to relocate my Pharmacy business. That's it. That's enough. That's a lot Monday. March 6th 2023. Those are the headlines. That's the Deep dive. This is business pants. I could thank all the people back in our home office, Jesse Ari. Matt I don't think I'm going to not going to think them. Instead I'm gonna tell you that you should buy 25,000 AI Bots and get them to download our show 24/7 30065 so that we can artificially boost our numbers. Tomorrow on the show. We will have the business pants corporate theater, Wednesday. Matt will be back. We'll do all things. Woke data, all things, ESG data. For our wolf data Wednesday show, I will talk to you.