Two shipowners who regularly place near the top of shipping’s rankings on environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) measures have won further approval from the most famously ESG-conscious investment fund in the US.
Both Connecticut-based Eagle Bulk Shipping and New York’s International Seaways have seen Larry Fink-led BlackRock — the world’s largest asset manager — increase its stakes in the companies since the last reporting, according to public filings revealed on Tuesday.
The New York-based fund now holds 944,000 shares (or 7.1%) in dry bulk’s Eagle Bulk — up from 697,000 (or 5.2%) at the previous filing last February.
At Eagle Bulk’s current share price near $57, BlackRock’s stake is worth close to $54m.
BlackRock has also put more money into International Seaways, bolstering its position to 3.6m shares (or 7.4%) — up from 3.3m (or 6.4%) last February.
At a current share price near $39, its position in the Lois Zabrocky-led tanker owner — an operator of a diverse fleet of crude and product carriers — is worth about $140m.
Eagle Bulk and International Seaways have regularly featured in the top five places of analyst Michael Webber’s annual ESG “scorecard” — a ranking of public shipowners that originally focused on governance practices but has expanded to include the other two strands of ESG.
Eagle Bulk has led the tables three times. International Seaways finished third in 2021, but lost ground to a 10th-place finish last year after Webber docked the shipowner for injecting a “poison pill” into its bylaws to stall an accumulation of shares by Norwegian shipping magnate John Fredriksen.
BlackRock is a high-profile advocate of using ESG criteria to help shape its investments. The position has made it a target of criticism for excessive “wokeness” in some of the more conservative “red” states in the US, among other places.
However, it might also be pointed out that International Seaways moves crude oil and Eagle Bulk hauls bulk cargoes that include coal – neither exactly a favourite of the environmentalist crowd.
BlackRock has been active in other shipping stocks as well.
In September last year, it disclosed a $93m stake in bulker owner Golden Ocean Group. Its 5.07% position placed it behind only Fredriksen — the company’s chief backer — in the ranks of stakeholders.
Two months later, BlackRock revealed a $153m slice in Fredriksen’s crude tanker company, Frontline. That investment placed it in the region of a 5% stake.
In response to recent criticism over its ESG agenda, Fink noted in the firm’s annual shareholder letter that BlackRock, as a matter of policy, did not divest its fossil-fuel positions.
