Glencore Investors Prodded to Oust Firm’s Chairman

(Bloomberg) --

Glencore Plc shareholders are being told to unseat Chairman Tony Hayward by an advisory firm critical of his environmental track record and independence after more than nine years on the board.

• The U.K.’s Pensions & Investment Research Consultants urged investors to vote against Hayward’s reappointment ahead of Glencore’s annual meeting on June 2. It criticized BP Plc’s former CEO for his handling of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and said he’s not independent enough given his extended time on the board
• The oil spill “scandal has raised significant concerns over his track record,” PIRC says
• Hayward was expected to leave Glencore at the end of his nine-year term, in line with a U.K. governance code, but the company has urged shareholders to extend his directorship as the group deals with corruption investigations and undergoes a broader leadership transition

ESG Must-Reads

Environmental

• The EU’s economic recovery plan is set to include the world’s most climate-ambitious stimulus package
• The U.K. is proposing that the United Nations climate conference scheduled for Glasgow in November this year is delayed by 12 months
• Britain could create 850,000 new green energy jobs this decade if it uses recovery stimulus to fast-track decarbonization, a report has found
• Europe is betting on emissions-free electricity for big industry in its economic recovery package, drafting measures to scale up the production of hydrogen

• Germany’s multi-billion euro bailout of Deutsche Lufthansa may cost the airline some precious airport slots, but one thing it won’t have to do is meet any new environmental rules
• The German government was sued by environmental activists over its failure to tackle harmful air pollutants
• Daimler and Rolls-Royce are planning a fuel-cell systems cooperation, Handelsblatt reported
• After the hottest winter on record in Russia, spring has brought a heatwave to Siberia
• Eskom Holdings’s desire to avoid spending $2.4b to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions at one of its largest power plants isn’t legally feasible
• A surge in solar power boosted the proportion of renewables in Australia’s energy mix in 2019, while coal’s dominance waned
• Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a nuclear-fusion startup, raised another $84m, underscoring investors’ steady appetite for new technologies to mitigate climate change

Social

• The U.K.’s accounting watchdog will investigate KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers, two of the country’s largest auditors, over their work for Eddie Stobart Logistics
• Ivory Coast plans to reject a U.S.-led survey on the prevalence of child labor in its cocoa industry
• The video of an altercation on Monday between a white female executive and a black man in Central Park went viral almost immediately. Within 24 hours, the woman was out of a job
• U.K. mothers are more likely to have lost their job, be on reduced hours and be caring for children while working than their male partners during the coronavirus crisis

Governance

• EasyJet CFO Andrew Findlay plans to leave the company next year after facing down a demand for his removal from the board in a dramatic shareholder vote
• The Dutch government, one of the top shareholders in Air France-KLM, voted against the resolutions on the remuneration of CEO Ben Smith
• Norway is about to reveal whether the man chosen to run its $1 trillion wealth fund has passed a key test to prove he won’t be bogged down by conflicts of interest

Sustainable Finance

• Trafigura Group is planning a major increase in renewable-energy investments over the next five years
• Inflows to ESG-focused ETFs declined 25% to $878.9m in the past week
• Norinchukin invests $1.4 billion in World Bank ESG bonds
• NWB Bank partners with Japan’s GPIF on sustainability bonds
• IDB launches Australian dollar sustainable development bond
• New Issues:
  • Deutsche Bank plans to sell EU500m senior preferred green bond
  • CAF selling Covid-19 social bonds
  • BBVA in market with Covid-19 social bonds
  • National University of Singapore raises first green bond
  • Hungary is planning calls with investors about green bonds
  • Severn Trent Utilities is selling GBP-denominated 20Y sustainable bond
  • Pearson Funding plans to sell social bonds

Research and Analysis

• From BloombergNEF analysts:
  • Rising funding costs for commercial banks from the global pandemic has lifted the all-in expenses for renewable energy projects in Europe, but so far the impact has been modest for those developers that have secured their long-term revenues
  • The solar market probably will dip in 2020 depending on what’s next for Covd-19
  • U.S. residential solar shows signs of recovery
  • Cost of power from battery storage has halved since 2018
  • India’s first round-the-clock renewables project will require innovative design strategies to be ready for 2022 and meet its energy output requirement
• From Bloomberg Intelligence analysts:
  • For base metals companies such as Cameco and BHP, elevating ESG factors to the boardroom and adding links to executive pay may indicate better management with direct performance incentives
  • Oil companies can accommodate the threat to gasoline demand posed by electric vehicles in the near term, partly because policy support across U.S. states is mixed and sometimes mutable
• For more research, click BNEF and BI ESG
• Featured Data: Search “green” on LEAG for data on the biggest managers of green bonds and loans

ESG Charts and Related Indexes

• “Slim hogs” are the latest sign that U.S. meat shortages are easing

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• For the weekly wrap of green bond sales, click here

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