Has anyone started the, like, Let’s Destroy The Earth Fund yet? I feel like if you started a private equity fund with an explicit mandate to invest in things with the worst environmental, social and governance attributes, then you’d have two really strong marketing points:
1. There is a simple story to be told that, as investors demand ESG and shun assets with bad ESG scores, those assets will be underpriced and you can buy them cheap and get good returns; plus
2. In the U.S., there is political polarization around ESG, and you could market your fund to all the people who don’t want BlackRock Inc. to go around saving the world on their behalf.
Seems like a good business.
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I think “get the bonanza of a lifetime while also destroying the environment” is not a pitch that will appeal to everybody, but it definitely will appeal to somebody?
in The Big Short, burry was quoted as saying he practices "ick investing", which means, focus your analysis on stuff that gives you an ick feeling. That's how he made some of his early money, buying shares in companies with good fundamentals but bad press. (or, of course, maybe he got lucky and that's just the story that was told)
i think he's still up to it, last time i looked at his portfolio he was holding a lot of oil drilling equipment manufacturers and private prisons.
I dont think I read this ever









