Recently, corporate owners of ETFs like Blackrock and Vanguard voted to effect change in Exxon, by voting in board members proposed by a small activist investing firm.
What are the long-term implications of this? Lets assume 50% of the owners of the underlying Blackrock funds owning Exxon actually disagreed with what Blackrock was doing - would this not be unfair? Is this not a form of "tyranny of the majority"? What if I, as an investor in a Blackrock-managed fund, actually want the exposure to a pure-play O&G company?
Have there been other cases where the corporate fund managers have made such a profound change to the Board of a large public listed company?
It is also scary how the Blackrock/Vanguard ownership % in public companies year after year. They own presumably 20-30% of most companies on the S&P500. And this includes competing companies. I believe no individual investor, bar fund managers, are allowed to own large stakes in competing companies.
Thanks!
Submitted June 05, 2021 at 02:05AM by learner1314 https://ift.tt/3vTC7Oh
