During the discussion in which BlackRock CEO Larry Fink told his audience that his firm was “forcing behaviors” on companies whose shares it held, he also divulged a key lever of the progressive movement to control corporations: proxy voting.
Fink told attendees at a 2017 New York Times conference that as an index fund manager, “we are the ultimate long-term holder; we have to own all the companies that are in an index.
“If you’re an active manager and you don’t like a company, you can sell it,” Fink said. “I can’t sell. I have only one power, and I’m going to use that power heavily. And that’s the power of the vote.”…