The State of Texas is terminating a massive $8.5 billion investment with trillion-dollar asset manager BlackRock over the state's determination that the firm is engaged in a boycott of energy companies.
In an announcement first shared with FOX Business, Texas State Board of Education Chairman Aaron Kinsey said the so-called Texas Permanent School Fund (PSF) had delivered a notice to BlackRock on Tuesday, informing the New York City-based firm of the action. According to Kinsey, the move was made in accordance with a 2021 state law that seeks to distance the state and its large public purse from financial institutions boycotting the oil and gas sector.
"The Texas Permanent School Fund has a fiduciary duty to protect Texas schools by safeguarding and growing the approximately $1 billion in annual oil and gas royalties managed by the Texas General Land Office," Kinsey said in a statement Tuesday. "Terminating BlackRock’s contract ensures PSF’s full compliance with Texas law."
"BlackRock’s dominant and persistent leadership in the ESG movement immeasurably damages our state’s oil & gas economy and the very companies that generate revenues for our PSF. Texas and the PSF have worked hard to grow this fund to build Texas’ schools," he continued. "BlackRock’s destructive approach toward the energy companies that this state and our world depend on is incompatible with our fiduciary duty to Texans."