WOKE WEDNESDAY: DeSantis has "moved on" from Disney, Damion does Discover Financial's succession plan, Montana kids win climate ruling, and NYC pensions look to toss anti-oil suit

Live from the Blackrock executive helipad, it’s the ESG Industry’s ONLY weekly woke data podcast, featuring AnalystHole-man Matt Moscardi! In today’s Eagle Seagull Goldfinch called August 16, 2023: ESG-ish headlines, an anti-woke update, and a word from our sponsor!

Our show today is being sponsored by ESGauge, your ESG data solutions provider 

Paul will be stopping by later to talk about board size. 

DAMION1

1. VinFast's shares surge in Nasdaq debut for Vietnam EV maker

1. VinFast's shares (VFS.O) soared in thin trading in their Nasdaq debut on Tuesday following the Vietnamese electric vehicle maker's $23 billion backdoor listing as the startup said it was likely to raise money from global investors within 18 months.

2. The stock opened at $22, more than double the $10 per share agreed with VinFast's SPAC partner Black Spade Acquisition (BSAQ.A) that had valued VinFast at $23 billion.

3. It surged further during the session, ending at $37.06 and valuing the EV maker, which has not posted a profit, at $85 billion, more than Ford's (F.N) market capitalization at $48 billion and General Motors' (GM.N) $46 billion stock market value.

4. FFA:

1. VinFast

1. 6 directors: Chairman and Founder Pham Nhat Vuong (99%)

1. CEO Le Thi Thu Thuy and 2 other female directors

2. South Korea 13% (up from 2% in 2018); Japan 16%/6; Thailand 19/13; Philippines 19/11: Malaysia 32/22; Indonesia 12/3; US 31/23

3. Vietnam's richest man, Vuong is the beneficial owner of 99% of VinFast's 2.3 billion ordinary shares after the merger through his flagship company and affiliates.

2. Ron DeSantis Says He Has “Moved On” And Disney Should Drop Its Lawsuit Against Him

1. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis urged The Walt Disney Co. to drop its lawsuit against him, while telling CNBC that he has “moved on” from his battle with the company and that it should drop the lawsuit against him.

2. Last Call host Brian Sullivan asked DeSantis why he doesn’t just pick up the phone and call Disney CEO Bob Iger to resolve the dispute. “We’ve basically moved on,” DeSantis said. “They are suing the state of Florida. They are going to lose that lawsuit. So what I would say is, ‘Drop the lawsuit.”

3. But legal experts previously told Insider the lawsuit brought by Disney had some teeth.

3. Wendy McMahon named president and CEO of CBS News and stations and CBS Media Ventures

1. Wendy McMahon has been named president and chief executive officer of CBS News and Stations and CBS Media Ventures, expanding her role to include singular oversight of CBS News and Stations as well as leadership of CBS’ domestic syndication business. The announcement was made by George Cheeks, president and chief executive officer of CBS, to whom McMahon reports.

2. In this newly created role and structure, McMahon will now lead all of CBS News’ broadcast and streaming operations, 27 local television stations in major U.S. markets, 14 local news streaming channels and CMV’s top-rated first-run syndication programming, as well as its content licensing to television stations and the division’s national advertising sales business.

3. FFA: Paramount Global

1. 63% F; 80% power thanks to dictator Shari Redstone

2. Kimberly Godwin ABC News

3. Rashida Jones MSNBC

4. Rebecca Blumenstein lNBC News

5. Suzanne Scott Fox News

4. Discover CEO Roger Hochschild Resigns as Board Vows Renewed Compliance Focus

1. John Owen, a board member, will take over on an interim basis

2. Board chair says credit-card company is focused on compliance

3. The move comes just weeks after Discover announced it would pause share buybacks amid an internal review of compliance, risk management and corporate governance. The firm is in talks with regulators over how it misclassified some of its credit cards, which led some merchants to be charged more than they should have to accept the cards for payment. Separately, Discover said it had received a proposed consent order from the FDIC tied to a consumer compliance issue.

4. That was the second time in a year that the company had to suspend share repurchases over compliance concerns. Discover last year temporarily paused buybacks after it started an internal investigation into practices within its student-loan servicing business.

5. FFA

1. Owen (less than 1%; since 2022)

2. CEO Roger Hochschild (25%)

3. Long-tenured power trio (41%) all appointed in 2007: Gregory Case (pay chair); Mary Bush (nom chair); Jeffrey Aronin

4. Shareholders didn’t seem to notice anything:

1. Everything passed with over 90% of the vote: the top 3 LT received an average 7% against; CEO 1% against

6. Does Compliance focus mean GLASS/BROWN CLIFF ALERT?

1. They are due: executive committee is 8 white dudes and a lawyer named Hope

2. Internal candidates

1. Chief Information Officer Amir S. Arooni

2. President-Payment Services Diane Offereins

1. Supposedly retired at the end of June

2. named one of the Most Powerful Women in Finance by American Banker for the last 15 consecutive years

3. Internal hire might not be a good idea

3. Karen Griffin

1. Chief Risk Officer for Mastercard and a member of the company’s executive leadership team and management committee

2. For the past eight years, she served as Chief Compliance Officer

3. Prior to joining Mastercard in 2014, Karen served as Senior Vice President and Chief Compliance Officer for Visa

4. Vice Chair of the ICC Global Commission on Anti-Corruption and Corporate Responsibility

5. a member of the B20 Action Council on ESG in Business, World Economic Forum Future of Good Governance Council, World Economic Forum Partnering Against Corruption Initiative, and Advancing Women Executives

6. You’re welcome, Discover

5. Young environmentalists won a landmark climate change ruling in Montana. Will it change anything?

1. Young environmental activists prevailed in a closely watched Montana lawsuit that said state officials weren’t doing enough to protect them from climate change

2. Legal observers called it a landmark victory for the 16 plaintiffs: It marks the first time a court in the U.S. has declared that a government has a constitutional duty to protect people from climate change.

3. State District Judge District Judge Kathy Seeley said officials violated Montana's highly protective constitution by refusing to consider the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions when they've approved coal mines, oil drilling and new power plants.

1. The judge also said the state can do something about it — deny permits for fossil fuel projects if their approval would result in "unconstitutional levels of GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions.”

2. “Montana’s land contains a significant quantity of fossil fuels yet to be extracted,” Seeley wrote. “The State and its agents could consider GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions and climate impacts and reject projects that would lead to unreasonable degradation of Montana’s environment.”

4. If it stands, Montana officials no longer will be able legally to ignore the huge contributions to global warming made by fossil fuels. Whether they do anything about those emissions is another question.

5. Never before has a U.S. court weighed in to say that a constitutional right to a healthy environment “includes climate as part of the environmental life-support system.”

6. That makes the ruling a landmark in climate litigation, said Sandra Zellmer, a professor of natural resources and environmental law at the University of Montana Blewett School of Law.

7. It could have even greater impact if it is upheld by the Montana Supreme Court, bolstering its impact as a legal precedent that could be cited in cases across the U.S. and even nationally, Zellmer said.

6. Special counsel obtained Trump DMs despite ‘momentous’ bid by Twitter to delay, unsealed filings show

1. Judge Beryl Howell lit into Twitter for taking steps to give Donald Trump advance notice about the search warrant.

2. Special counsel Jack Smith obtained an extraordinary array of data from Twitter about Donald Trump’s account — from direct messages to draft tweets to location data — newly unsealed court filings reveal.

3. But it took a bruising battle with Twitter’s attorneys in January and February — punctuated by a blistering analysis by a federal judge, who wondered whether Elon Musk was attempting to “cozy up” to the former president by resisting the special counsel’s demands — before prosecutors got the goods.

4. Ultimately, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell held Twitter (now known as X) in contempt of court in February, fining the company $350,000 for missing a court-ordered deadline to comply with Smith’s search warrant. But the newly unsealed transcripts of the proceedings in her courtroom show that the fine was the least of the punishment. Howell lit into Twitter for taking “extraordinary” and apparently unprecedented steps to give Trump advance notice about the search warrant — despite prosecutors’ warnings, backed by unspecified evidence, that notifying Trump could cause grave damage to their investigation.

7. Bankers Hate Saying ‘ESG’ But Are Hardwiring It Into Finance

1. Survey shows only 18% of respondents view backlash as obstacle

2. Overwhelming majority want politicians to stop interfering

3. Bankers, money managers and other financial market participants are starting to loathe the label “ESG” — but they’re also sticking with the strategy, according to a Bloomberg survey.

4. About two-thirds of respondents in a survey of roughly 300 Bloomberg terminal users said the anti-ESG movement that started in the US last year will force firms to stop using those three letters in conversations with clients. However, they’ll continue to incorporate environmental, social and governance metrics in their business, they also said.

MATT1

• The “hey, I just noticed that…” roundup

• Popular sweets brand risks boycott after 'woke' LGBT+ packaging make-over - GB News

• That brand is Skittles, whose tag line for decades has been “taste the rainbow”, who since at least 2017 has done gray packaging for pride.  The anti woke just noticed.

• Owned by Mars, the 4th largest private company in the US

• THEY ARE WOKE:

• NYC Pensions Seek to Dismiss Lawsuit Over Fossil Fuel Stakes

• From the great Saijel Kishan at Bloomberg, Americans for Fair Treatment, an anti-woke oil front, sued NYC pensions for divesting from fossil fuels, to which NYC said, in case you hadn’t noticed:

• The total lack of precedent supporting Plaintiffs’ legal theory is no mere happenstance. Public pension funds exercise judgment every day about which companies and industries to invest in or not. Texas divested from pornography in 2006. Tennessee divested from marijuana in 2019. Those decisions, and countless other discretionary decisions that public pension funds make daily, do not end up in court because courts are not the right place to challenge them.

• If the court goes to trial, guess you can sue for any investment decision you disagree with at a pension fund!

• Republican-controlled states like Oklahoma are rushing to invest in clean energy, even as conservative groups push for more oil and gas

• You fucking hypocritical assholes… 

• An ‘embarrassingly simple’ solution for industrial emissions 

• That solution: “thermal batteries” that effectively use toaster technology and heat capturing bricks that is “a version of a system developed for use alongside blast furnaces about two centuries ago. The bricks are heated to about 1,500°C — and conserve this heat energy for days, with daily loss rates of just 1 percent.”

• This after we just noticed that “wind powered shipping” - otherwise known as sailboats - are great for reducing carbon emissions