Federated Hermes, a champion of environmentally friendly investment strategies, has bowed to client demands to withdraw sponsorship of a coalition of senior US public officials that opposes action on climate change in an embarrassing U-turn for the $632bn asset manager.
Pension funds clients based in Denmark, Norway, Australia and the UK had asked Federated Hermes to explain why it had agreed to act as a gold sponsor for the State Financial Officers Foundation — a Republican group that has lobbied aggressively against president Joe Biden’s climate change policies.
The foundation has dismissed environmental, social and governance policies as a “scam” and SFOF members have threatened to remove state retirement assets from financial companies that do not support fossil fuel industries.
Pittsburgh-based Federated declined to comment and has not explained its decision to end the controversial partnership, but several pension funds confirmed that they have been notified by the company that the SFOF sponsorship agreement would end next year.
Kirstine Lund Christiansen, head of ESG at the Danish pension fund P+ and a client of Federated Hermes, said it was “very positive” that the asset manager had decided not to renew its sponsorship of the SFOF.
Anders Schelde, chief investment officer of AkademikerPension, a second Danish pension fund and a client of Federated Hermes, said that it welcomed the decision to end the sponsorship in light of SFOF’s climate…
