Having worked in journalism for many years, Outsider can cast his mind back to a time when sexist comments were frequently made about women and nobody blinked an eye.
However, even he knows times have changed and that those type of comments are totally unacceptable now meaning he has little sympathy for those being called out.
So, Outsider nodded sagely when he read that famous US investor Ken Fisher, whose firm Fisher Investments manages over US$100 billion and who regularly appears on TV, had his work with Fidelity Investments terminated over disparaging remarks.
Attending an industry conference in San Francisco, Fisher is understood to have made derogatory comments about genitalia, ‘trying to get into a girl’s pants’, and alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
Outsider congratulates Fidelity on putting its money where its mouth is and removing their $500 million mandate from Fisher’s firm, saying his ‘views do not align’ with the firm’s values.
Fidelity was joined by the state of Michigan which pulled $600 million of its pension fund from the wealth manager, the Philadelphia board of pension, which had $54 million with the firm, and the Florida Pension Fund, which had $175 million with Fisher, said it was carrying out an investigation on him.
While it is easy to talk the talk on the #MeToo scandal and hopping onto the ESG investing wagon, it is reassuring to see some companies are also ‘walking the walk’ and taking their assets elsewhere.
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