BlackRock Says ‘Reckless’ Texas Divestment Is Bad for Schools

  • Firm is urging school fund to reconsider pulling $8.5 billion
  • Republicans across US targeting BlackRock over fossil fuels

BlackRock headquarters in New York.

Photographer: Angus Mordant/Bloomberg
Lock
This article is for subscribers only.

BlackRock Inc. criticized Texas’s decision to divest $8.5 billion from the asset manager’s funds, calling the move “reckless” and detrimental to the finances of the state’s schools and families.

“Your actions put short-term politics over your long-term fiduciary responsibilities,” Mark McCombe, a BlackRock vice chairman, said in a letter Thursday to Aaron Kinsey, chair of the Texas State Board of Education. “We were dismayed.”