I’ll Have the Souffle
In March, nervous that the Employee Free Choice Act being introduced before Congress would depress Wal Mart’s earning potential, Citigroup’s research division lowered Wal Mart from a buy to a hold recommendation. The bill, also known as EFCA, would make it easier for employees to form unions, and is supported by the Obama Administration. In the Trillium article Keeping the SRI in ESG, the efforts of some major Wall Street firms to incorporate environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors into their investment decision making are desribed. For a while, Citigroup also issued research advice from an ESG perspective, but that office was …
Royal Bank of Canada
200 Bay StreetRoyal Bank Plaza Toronto, ON M5J 2J5 Canada http://www.royalbank.com/ With all of the turmoil in the financial sector over the past year, one major bank has managed to avoid any bombshells to date – Royal Bank of Canada (NYSE – RBC). It happens to be one of the world’s best managed banks with respect to sustainability issues, and its stock has held up remarkably well. It is down about half as much as the S&P 500 financial sector over the past year (-27 percent versus -56 percent). Royal Bank of Canada is a diversified financial services company. It is …
Becton Dickinson
1 Becton Drive Franklin Lakes, NJ USA 07417 201.847.6800 http://www.bd.com/ by Alison Haight, Simmon MBA candidate Founded in 1897, Becton Dickinson (NYSE – BDX) pioneered the hypodermic needle. Today, BDX is a medical device company best known as a producer of needle-free safety products, safe-needle devices, and other surgical tools. BDX also manufactures a wide variety of laboratory research tools and clinical diagnostic tools. The company has four strategic areas of interest: reduction in the spread of infection, advancement of global health, improvement of therapeutic capacity, and progress toward disease management, particularly infectious diseases, cancer, and diabetes. With 28,000 employees …
Bear Stearns Remembered
New Book Captures the Culture of a Wall Street High-Flier by Milt Moskowitz My stepson worked for 17 years at Bear Stearns before it disappeared last year into the bowels of JPMorgan Chase in the shotgun marriage arranged by the U.S. government. He is doing very well today, taking time off to consider his options. He misses the excitement of deal making. His major deals involved structured financial products collateralized by mortgage-backed securities, the root cause of the current upheaval in the economy. AIG was his top client. Bear Stearns was not a company that made it into the portfolios …
Keeping the SRI in ESG
Big changes are underway in the world of socially responsible investing (SRI). In just the past five or so years, mainstream Wall Street has reversed course from its longstanding claim that SRI can only hurt financial returns, to embrace the idea that environmental and social issues can have a direct impact on financial performance. The Wall Street shops are defining their approach as “sustainability” or “ESG” (environment, social and governance) investing. Goldman Sachs recently launched GS Sustain, as “a unique global equity strategy that brings together ESG criteria, broad industry analysis and return on capital to identify long-term investment opportunities.” Mercer, one of …
Dear Reader
by Cheryl Smith, Ph.D., CFA, President The first daffodils of spring just opened beside my house. The sight of these spring flowers always engenders a spirit of newness, of freshness, and of hope after the excessively long New England winter. This year more than ever, I need that sign of hope. For at least 50 years, as transaction and trading costs have fallen, world financial markets have become increasingly focused on the short term, and the expectations for acceptable quarterly returns have moved ever higher. Profit’s share of national income has reached new heights. Over the past 15 years, the …
Chevron Liability in Ecuador Pollution Case Approaches $27 Billion
Court Judgment Expected This Year by Shelley Alpern Five years ago, I had the privilege of getting a firsthand look at the evidence in one of the most important lawsuits being heard anywhere in the world. The exhibits are a number of oily pits and ponds scattered throughout the state of Sucumbios, Ecuador, right in the middle of the Amazon rainforest. The contamination is allegedly the work of Texaco, the first petroleum company to break ground in Ecuador in the early 1970s. The court case is being heard in Lago Agrio, a sad-looking town whose many ramshackle buildings look far …
ConocoPhillips Shareholders Show Strong Support for Tar Sands Proposal
BOSTON – May 14, 2009. ConocoPhillips shareholders demonstrated even stronger support this year than last for a shareholder proposal calling for the company to fully account for the environmental impact of its tar sands operations. Over thirty percent (30.54%) of shareholders voted in support, compare to last year’s vote of 27.5%. The “yes” vote represented approximately $12.8 billion in share value. Shareholders owning $7.2 billion in value abstained. The proposal, filed by Trillium Asset Management Corporation (“Trillium”), Green Century Capital Management (“Green Century”), First Affirmative Financial Network and Walden Asset Management called for an independent committee of the Board to …
RiskMetrics calls Open MIC Internet Project "biggest new campaign in the human rights arena for the 2009 U.S. proxy season."
Risk Metrics Group (RMG), the nation’s largest and most influential proxy advisory firm, provides research to some of the world’s largest and most important financial institutions about the environmental and social issues shareholders raise in proxy statements. It’s guidance to large pension funds often determines the fate of shareholder proposals filed by Trillium Asset Management and our fellow shareholder activists. We were, therefore, very pleased when RMG recently wrote a lengthy piece on the Open MIC shareholder initiative describing it as the “biggest new campaign in the human rights arena for the 2009 U.S. proxy season.” The story discusses the …
American Superconductor
American Superconductor (Nasdaq: AMSC) is emerging as a leading player in the wind energy hardware market, particularly in China. The company’s core technologies are programmable power systems, including electronic converters, and high temperature superconductor (HTS) wires. AMSC has quickly grown into a leading wind energy grid connection company, particularly in emerging markets. Its two main wind energy products are an inverter and soft-switch capacitor that maintains fluid voltage, and a scalable converter of wind energy into electricity accessible to the public electrical grid. In 2007 AMSC acquired Windtec and Power Quality Systems to enable further growth in the wind and …
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