Woke corporate governance, which recently led to the fiscal hemorrhaging of Anheuser-Busch and Target, often begins with investment firms pressuring them to behave in certain ways, a former executive at the beer conglomerate said.
Anson Frericks told “Jesse Watters Primetime” a lot of the lead-up to decisions — such as the one at his former firm involving transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney that led to a nationwide boycott of Bud Light — stem from the politicking of firms like New York-based BlackRock and Pennsylvania-based Vanguard.
Altogether, BlackRock, Vanguard and another firm, State Street, manage about $20 trillion in capital, Frericks said, noting it is not truly “their” money but that of the investments of Americans’ mutual funds and state pension funds.
Frericks said in the case of one of the firms, it manages California’s pension fund — the largest in the country — and that therefore California politicians can also have a say in the corporate governance and politicking of the firms they invest so heavily in.
Frericks said he left his post at the St. Louis beer manufacturer in part because of the way much of corporate America was acting in terms of defying public sentiment when engaging in politics.
He pointed to Atlanta, home to Coca-Cola and Delta Airlines, which became outraged after Georgia’s legislators passed election integrity laws.
Frericks said he was living in the city at the time and witnessed those companies’ corporate responses to the legislative process — as well as that of Major League Baseball, which punished the state by moving the All-Star Game to more progressive Colorado.
Frericks said the trend seen in Atlanta and lately in other concerns is dangerous because it led to customer alienation and, using Coke as an example, politicizing its long-held role of “just delivering soft drinks.”
“But frankly, it’s bad for democracy as well. Citizens should be able to decide these things through free and fair elections, not necessarily with a small group of asset managers and CEOs that are telling individuals how to live their lives,” he said.
