Assertion Partly supported
Tesla produces equal or more Scope 1 and 2 emissions than GM
“On scope one and two, for example, Tesla has the same or even more emissions per unit volume than do GM and Ford.”
Opinion
Foundations ignore the 95% of endowments invested contrary to their core mission
“And I've never understood in the foundation space, you know, people spend so much time programmatically on the five percent that they put out each year, which is, of course, incredibly important. But the other hundred percent of their assets are sitting on the…”
Insight
Blended finance organizations solve social challenges more efficiently than governments
“Some of those organizations are just more efficient in allocating capital and tackling social challenges than if you asked a pure, purely nonprofit to do it, or you asked a government program to do it.”
Insight
ESG leadership drives higher valuation multiples by de-risking future cash flows
“You have two companies doing exactly the same one, but one leads on ESG and one doesn't. You're willing to pay more for the cash flows of the one that leads on ESG because those cash flows are less risky. They're less volatile.”
Insight
Board diversity improves corporate risk management and capital allocation decisions
“Is there diversity on the board? Again, not because it's the right thing to do, because it's the right business thing to do. It leads to better risk management. It leads to better capital allocation.”
Insight
Private equity's short holding periods disincentivize long-term investments in sustainability
“Private equity average hold is much shorter, so the incentives are different, and investing in sustainability is often synonymous with a long-term orientation. Some of these things of investing in good processes and investing in your people pay off over multip…”
Insight
Long-tenured CEOs with poor governance scores often create destructive personal fiefdoms
“We look for companies where the CEO has been in the seat, 15 years or longer, and where NSCI or Sustainalytics gives them a bottom quartile score on governance. And we've just seen over and over in our career that And sometimes the CEO is there because they're…”
Prediction Held up
Medicare going cash-flow negative will end excess rents for healthcare monopolies
“And I think that trades over because Medicare is going to go cashflow negative in the next few years.”
Insight
Eliminating dividends and buybacks destroys owners' ability to redeploy corporate profits
“If you eliminate those, you kind of take out one of the core tenants of capitalism, which is the ability for owners to redeploy their profits into more productive activities.”
Insight
Multiple fund products create revenue stability to fund infrastructure and talent
“Our approach was to say, really focus on the customer, the client. What do they want? What of their needs are we solving and design products around that have multiple products so that it creates some stability of revenues to the GP and management company and a…”
Disclosure
Davis: Most Inherent Foundation endowment assets target commercial returns in MRIs
“Most of the endowment Is in what I would call MRI, mission-related investments, where we expect, they're aligned with our mission, but we expect commercial rates of return.”
Insight
Blended finance imposes financial discipline by setting capital return expectations
“There's also something about this blended finance models that also, I think there's a governor accountability effect that there is an expectation of return of capital, let's say. And so it does sometimes cause the receiving organization to have to be a little …”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Davis: Externalities beyond carbon will be priced over time
“I think other externalities are going to be priced over time.”
Insight
Hedge funds must adopt long-term horizons to avoid competing against algorithms
“I think if you're trying to compete quarterly against the machines, that's a tough place to be. So you need to be able to take a longer term view.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
UN Sustainable Development Goals provide a multi-year structural investment tailwind
“I like this description of the sustainable development goals as the strategic plan for the planet, which I believe. And if you believe that there's just going to be over many, many years, a tailwind to invest in these SDG aligned areas. And conversely, if you'…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
The COVID-19 pandemic will elevate the 'Social' pillar of ESG investing
“I think in this current moment of COVID, S is going to get its day in the sun.”
Assertion Supported
ESG rating agencies frequently disagree on companies' actual ESG performance profiles
“Even the ratings agencies themselves often don't agree on whether a company is a good ESG company or a bad ESG company.”
Assertion Supported
Corporate social ESG data is self-reported, unaudited, and chronically stale
“Social is much more difficult today. Let's start with the fact that the data is self-reported, unaudited, and stale by the time you get it from those corporates.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Davis: Mandatory ESG disclosures and data frameworks will improve
“So I think that's going to improve. Mandatory disclosures are going to improve. Different frameworks for taking that data then and figuring out how to use it in a useful way are going to improve.”
Assertion Partly supported
PwC found one-third of fired CEOs were ousted for ethical lapses
“PWC had a report out, I don't know, maybe it was six months ago and said that a third of all the CEOs that had been laid off in a prior year, it was due to ethical lapses.”
Prediction Held up
Legislation will eliminate surprise billing profits for physician practice management businesses
“And conversely, companies that are, have been earning excess rents, I'd say some of the physician practice management businesses where they've benefited from surprise billing, you know, that's now Looks like it's going to be legislated away.”
Insight
Tony Davis: Restructurings offer a unique opportunity to overhaul corporate governance
“The other thing I would point out is there is an opportunity in a restructuring to hit the reset button. You have this moment in time where you can completely rethink governance and put in place best practices in terms of governance and executive compensation.…”
Insight
Review random investment memos to test if ESG managers are genuine
“On the mission-driven side, I tell people really two things. One, what are they doing as a manager, as a management company to embrace ESG? Two, pull some investment committee memos at random and see how they talk about ESG.”
Insight
Investors must avoid un-termed leverage to play offense during market stress
“From an investing standpoint, the biggest sort of takeaway was just make sure that you're in a position to go on offense when the markets are under pressure. And so that's really informed how we think about managing the portfolio risk here at inherent as well.…”
