Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar is stepping up his battle against so-called sustainable investing, telling state money managers that they haven't done enough to cut ties with BlackRock Inc. and other financial firms that he says boycott the oil and gas industry.
Hegar sent letters late Wednesday to five Texas government-employee pension funds and an entity that manages money for the public school systems, “strongly” encouraging them to sever all relationships with companies on his office’s divestment list, according to copies of the missives seen by Bloomberg News. The move follows a 2021 law that requires state entities to sell their shares in financial companies or investment funds that limit business with the fossil-fuel industry. In August, Hegar released a list of 10 companies including BlackRock and UBS Group AG and more than 300 individual funds that he says discriminate against oil and gas.
