Investment firms are to blame for woke campaigns, claims ex-AB exec

A former Anheuser-Busch executive has alleged that institutional investors are foisting leftist ideology on the companies they invest in, prompting recent controversies such as those surrounding Bud Light and Target.

Anson Frericks, a co-founder of Strive Asset Management who previously spent a decade at Anheuser-Busch, made the claim in an interview Tuesday. Fox news.

“You just have to follow the money. Look at BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard — they manage $20 billion in capital,” he said.

Frericks said much of the money held by institutional investors comes from large pension funds such as the California state, which put ideological pressure on the money managers.

“They — State Street, BlackRock, Vanguard — need to commit to ESG, diversity, equality and inclusion and make company-wide commitments that they then enforce on all major companies in corporate America,” Frericks said.

Shares of AB InBev and Target are both down more than 17% following recent controversies

According to Frericks’ LinkedIn profile, he left Anheuser-Busch in April 2022.

Asked if he left the company because he witnessed pressure from institutional investors, Frericks protested, saying, “Not necessarily because of Anheuser-Busch, but a lot of other companies.”

In fact, institutional investors own just 5.29 percent of the outstanding shares of the brewer’s Belgium-based parent company Anheuser-Busch InBev, according to NASDAQ data.

AB InBev has a complex shareholder structure due to several mergers over the years, but a small ownership group controls about 43 percent of the company’s voting stock, through a holding company known as Stichting Anheuser-Busch InBev and related smaller entities.

Stichting Anheuser-Busch InBev appoints nine directors to the company’s board of directors, in addition to three independent directors and three directors nominated by the limited shareholders.

Shares of the company are down 17.8 percent since Bud Light’s April 1 partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney sparked anti-LGBTQ backlash and boycotts.

Retail chain Target came under similar pressure after items in its Pride Month merchandise angered conservatives, including women’s swimwear marketed as “pleat-friendly” to accommodate biologically male genitals.

Retail chain Target faced similar boycott threats after items in its Pride Month merchandise angered conservatives

The latest data points to a hardening of recent sales trends, after the April 1 promotion of Bud Light featuring Mulvaney (above) sparked anti-LGBTQ backlash and boycott threats

Shares of Target are down 17.23 percent since May 17, before the controversy arose.

Target has significant institutional ownership, with institutional investors holding 81 percent of the company’s stock.

Vanguard Group is the largest single shareholder, holding about 9 percent at the end of March.

Several Target stores in the rural South have now reportedly hidden and toned down Pride sections, and employees at Target’s headquarters are said to have held an “emergency meeting” to avoid what one insider called a “Bud Light situation.”

In a statement last week, Target — led by CEO Brian Cornell — announced that the company had withdrawn a number of items it had received complaints about, specifying that they were “at the center of some of the most confrontational behavior.” ‘

“Since the introduction of this year’s collection, we have faced threats that affect our team members’ sense of safety and well-being at work,” the company said in a statement.

“Given these volatile conditions, we are adjusting our plans, including removing items that were central to the most significant confrontational behavior.”