A US start-up has launched a tool to help investors move their money out of companies headquartered in states with “extreme anti-abortion laws,” seeking to tap into a growing movement toward shareholder activism.
OpenInvest said it wanted to drive change and encourage states to reverse their decisions with the tool, launched after new restrictions on abortion passed by Republican-dominated legislatures in eight US states.
The tool screens out large companies headquartered in states including Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas and Ohio, and promotes those in states it says support reproductive rights.
“Our vision is to use technology to help investors — if they have US$200 or US$200 million — to align their assets with things they care about,” said Claire Veuthey, a director at OpenInvest. “We hope to fundamentally make a positive impact, drive change and encourage those states with extreme anti-abortion laws to reverse their decisions and take a stand for all human rights.”
OpenInvest allows its clients — which include financial advisers, institutional investors, charities and consumers — to invest in large listed companies in the US.
It uses data to decide whether a company is “good” or “bad” on a range of issues, such as greenhouse gas emissions and LGBT+ rights.
The ethical investment movement has for decades focused on moving capital away from certain business, such as those dealing in fossil fuels.
However, there is a growing movement toward broader shareholder activism, encouraging companies to change from within, by for example raising their concerns publicly at companies’ annual general meetings or meeting board members to seek change.
Activists are calling for boycotts of products produced in Alabama after it passed an outright ban, including for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest, unless the woman’s life is in danger.
Other states, including Ohio and Georgia, have banned abortions absent a medical emergency after six weeks of pregnancy or after the foetus’ heartbeat can be detected, which can occur before a woman even realizes she is pregnant.
Many of the restrictions are intended to draw legal challenges, which religious conservatives hope will lead the nation’s top court to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy.
Economic boycotts over the past few years have pressured states to roll back legislation.
North Carolina repealed a 2017 law barring transgender people from using the bathroom of their choice after the National Collegiate Athletic Association said that the state could not host championship games unless it scrapped the legislation.
Vaidehee Sachdev, a senior research manager at ShareAction, a London-based charity that promotes responsible investment, welcomed the tool as “a new and exciting proposal” that could “send a strong signal to companies with outdated policies.”
“But to really effect change, institutional investors — who are unlikely to divest solely on the ground of reproductive rights policies — need to raise this issue with target companies during engagements,” Sachdev said.
Veuthey said that OpenInvest launched its reproductive rights tool in response to demand from customers.
Of the about 500 companies listed on OpenInvest, 53 are excluded on the grounds of reproductive rights, and 81 are favored.
Pharmaceutical companies including Pfizer Inc and Johnson & Johnson are favored by the algorithm because they make contraceptives, as are technology firms International Business Machines Corp and Microsoft Corp, because of their US paid parental leave policies.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six