Wall Street can relax — Larry Fink hasn’t gone radical on climate change, after all.
Pranksters on Wednesday blasted out a fake letter claiming Fink’s $6 trillion investing behemoth BlackRock was selling stocks in companies that weren’t compliant with the Paris Agreement — the global climate pact that President Trump exited last year.
The bogus letter captured the style of Fink’s usual annual letter to CEOs, in which he has previously railed against corporate short-termism and excessive share buybacks.
“Within 5 years, more than 90 percent of our 1000+ investment products will be converted to screen out non-Paris compliant companies such as coal, oil. and gas, which we see as declining and endangered,” the bogus letter said.
Wednesday’s hoax letter, which was sent to media outlets and posted on a website that looked like BlackRock’s, got picked up by several news outlets including the Financial Times, which were then forced to publish corrections.
“Don’t be fooled by imitations … Larry’s real CEO letter coming soon,” BlackRock said in a tweet Wednesday, declining to comment further on the fake letter.
It appeared that the sham letter was the work of the activist group The Yes Men. The group also reportedly took credit on Wednesday for distributing fake versions of the Washington Post in Washington, DC, that claimed President Trump was leaving office.
“Everything called for in our fake letter are steps BlackRock could take while still remaining model capitalists,” the group said on its website.
It’s not the first time BlackRock has been targeted by activists.
Four months ago a protester from the female-led peace group Code Pink stormed the stage at a conference where Fink was speaking to attack BlackRock’s investments in weapons manufacturers.
BlackRock acknowledged that such investments are held in funds that track broader indices.