The State of Texas is terminating a huge $8.5 billion investment with trillion-dollar asset manager BlackRock amid a dispute over the firm’s targeting of U.S. energy suppliers.
Texas State Board of Education Chairman Aaron Kinsey stated in an announcement first obtained by Fox Business on Tuesday that the Texas Permanent School Fund (PSF) had notified BlackRock on Tuesday that it was divesting from the asset management firm.
“The Texas Permanent School Fund has a fiduciary duty to protect Texas schools by safeguarding and growing the approximately $1 billion in annual oil and gas royalties managed by the Texas General Land Office,” Kinsey said in a statement Tuesday. “Terminating BlackRock’s contract ensures PSF’s full compliance with Texas law.”
“BlackRock’s dominant and persistent leadership in the ESG movement immeasurably damages our state’s oil & gas economy and the very companies that generate revenues for our PSF. Texas and the PSF have worked hard to grow this fund to build Texas’ schools,” he continued. “BlackRock’s destructive approach toward the energy companies that this state and our world depend on is incompatible with our fiduciary duty to Texans.”
Texas’ action was taken in adherence with a 2021 state statute designed to