On 2 February Larry Fink, CEO of the world’s largest asset management firm BlackRock, sends a letter to the CEOs of the S&P 500 in which he attacks market short-termism. He asks every CEO to “lay out for shareholders each year a strategic framework for long-term value creation”, one reviewed by board members. It raises the time dimension of materiality. He challenges companies to educate their investors, explaining how with long-term plans they are adapting to technological disruption or geopolitical events, where they are investing and how they are developing talent. This follows meetings convened by Warren Buffett and JPMorgan Chase on the topic of longer-term investment priorities with BlackRock, Fidelity, Vanguard and Capital Group. In a supportive letter to the Financial Times, the CFA Institute agrees that the issue is not quarterly reporting as such but rather the type of information disclosed.
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