Essay by Eric Worrall
Did Stuart Kirk’s presentation strip away a legal defence of feigned ignorance from financial advisors who sell dubious green investments?
Imagine if hypothetically in the early days of the frenzy which led to the GFC / Subprime Mortgage Crash, a senior banker had very publicly announced everyone who invests in Subprime mortgages would eventually lose their money, had explained in detail what the problem was, and had concluded that based on their carefully reasoned argument the investments had no genuine value. Then in 2008, when all the spinning plates crashed, everyone who purchased subprime mortgage products could have sued to get their money back. Bankers who sold subprime would have been open to accusations from lawyered up clients that they committed fraud, that they knew some of their clients would lose money, before they sold those high risk subprime financial products.
Stuart Kirk’s broadside attack on the green investment industry may have done just this to the green investment industry. His attack may have stripped financial advisers who sell dubious green investments of their legal cover.
Why HSBC’s response to Kirk’s climate speech was damaging to responsible investment
In a bid to manage the PR fallout from the explosive presentation on climate change by head of responsible investment Stuart Kirk, HSBC’s blunt response may have done more damage to public discourse than his comments themselves.
By Daniel Flatt
May 26, 2022 updated 27 May 2022 9:56am
- After Stuart Kirk, HSBC Global Asset Management’s head of responsible investment, argued that climate risk was overplayed, his comments were swiftly disavowed by HSBC’s top executives and he was suspended.
- Many are sceptical about the assertions by HSBC group CEO Noel Quinn and others in the leadership team about the group’s view on climate risk and its commitment to achieving net zero.
- Several institutional investor groupings preferred not to comment to Capital Monitor on the situation, but Kirk had raised several important points worthy of further debate.
What a difference a 16-minute presentation on climate change makes. The now-infamous speech by Stuart Kirk, head of responsible investment at HSBC Global Asset Management, last week on why investors have more things to worry about today than they do in 20 years’ time might well be remembered for a similarly long period.
What is less likely to stick in the memory is the financial group’s response. It should do, though, because it was an equally brazen act of self-defence that will have wider ramifications for how financial institutions tackle public discourse on climate change.
Without raking over the finer details – as has been done expansively already – we will underline one thing: Kirk made it abundantly clear he believes climate change is real, but it is not a financial risk worth worrying about.
The resultant public outcry was huge. Many investors and climate experts – and others besides – voiced their horror on social media at what they felt was an ill-conceived point of view. What’s more, existing and prospective clients of the firm are seen as likely to increase their due diligence of asset managers’ climate strategies as a result.
…
Read more: https://capitalmonitor.ai/opinion/hsbc-response-to-kirks-climate-speech/
If you haven’t watched Stuart Kirk’s presentation, I strongly urge you to do so – it might not be there forever.
If Stuart Kirk’s devastating accusations are correct, in my opinion his words could be interpreted as suggesting the inputs to financial models which predict a demand for the climate investment products currently being sold are being heavily manipulated to produce a preconceived outcome. Stuart appeared to claim he is being “pressured” to add unrealistic assumptions to climate financial models, to “move the needle” on predicted economic harm from climate change.
If there turns out to be no genuine need for green climate investments, and that fact was hidden because as Stuart seemed to suggest, bank financial models are being heavily manipulated to create a fake impression of need – Stuart has effectively let the cat out of the bag.
Stuart’s presentation means there is public domain evidence of problems. Financial advisors can no longer claim they were as surprised as everyone else, if the value of the green investment products they are selling collapses.
Anyone who loses money on green investments potentially has a strong case, if they try to sue their financial adviser to get their money back. All they need to do is point to Stuart’s presentation, and argue that anyone with expert knowledge of the climate investment industry should have been aware there were problems, at the time the investment products were sold. At the very least Stuart’s presentation is prompting “increased due diligence” – more detailed oversight of the assumptions which are being fed into the future value projections of climate investments.
Note I’m not an investment advisor or a lawyer, so please don’t quote me on your lawsuit – but I think there is a real possibility that when people look back on the history of green investments, Stuart Kirk may quietly be recognised as the hero who saved us from the worst of the coming green GFC, the banker who put the pebble on the rails of train green before it reached its full potential as a global economy wrecking investment bubble.
Stuart, you’re my hero mate.
Did HSBC Stuart Kirk Just Kill the Climate Investment Industry?Let’s hope so.
Now let’s find someone to speak out against ESG and how it is against fiduciary standards for investment firms.
I beleive that the Attorney General of Kentucky has stated that.
I meant someone in the financial investment world.
There’s got to be some level headed investment advisor that would mirror what the AG of Kentucky says. The quicker one pipes in, the sooner the charade fails.
I expect they all know. Most of the top investment bankers I met in my former life were honors graduate PHD physicists and mathematicians, some of the smartest people on the planet, so they certainly have the educational depth to evaluate climate science for themselves. All of them knew about Climategate – its their job to know everything about the industries they trade. But most of them kept their views to themselves – they were there to make money.
IIRC Florida has an oar in this too
Excellent essay. Your reference to the subprime mortgage debacle reminded me of the following.
Thank you for this Eric,
As I recall, suspended HSBC banker Stuart Kirk even accepted the global warming false nonsense, but only said it was not that serious a crisis – not that costly and far in the future. Then he was publicly rebuked and suspended by his woke boss. Kabuki theatre!
Most of the money guys I know just “go-with-the-flow”, can see no more than 30 minutes into the future and are somewhat innumerate. Most are Commerce grads – few Physicists or Mathematicians. Those who failed out of Engineering went into Commerce.
Regards, Allan
I recently sent an abridged version of the following to the public LinkedIn page of Noel Quinn, Group Chief Executive at HSBC.
[excerpt]
Mr. Noel Quinn,
You wrote: “Our ambition is to be the leading bank supporting the global economy in the transition to net zero.”
The entire Net-Zero narrative is based on false scientific and technical assumptions and any bank or country that follows this nonsense will fail in this endeavour.
…
Happy to explain, and to save your bank and the many countries you work in trillions of squandered dollars.
Regards, Allan MacRae, B.A.Sc.(Eng.), M.Eng.
Calgary
https://energy-experts-international.com/
A PHD today is proof you have allowed yourself to be indoctrinated. Success in education is measured on how well you can repeat what you are told. Smart people who accept false narratives as being true tend to more deluded than the average person because they can find more examples in support of their beliefs. They have been told all their lives how smart they are so the closed loop of perception is more fixed.
Intelligence is the ability to see how cause and effect works to bring everything into being and being open to new information so understanding increases with complexity. People who self identify as being smart tend to think they know things rather than being open to whole system thinking.
How many of these have beach front mansions that send a warning to us climate denier plebs?
“…most of them kept their views to themselves – they were there to make money.”
Money Changes Everything
Even the professional honesty and integrity of certain scientists
There are plenty. You needn’t worry about finding someone. While they may not exist at BlackRock or GMO (f/k/a Grantham Mayo Otterloo), there are literally thousands who are climate “realists.”
Thanks for the analysis, Eric. Lets hope this is just the first of many dominos.
In a similar vein, I asked a lifelong buddy, board member of a large cap corporation, if I should be worried about ESG impacting my stockholding.
He said they have to be seen to be woke-friendly, but if ESG ever looks like costing them any serious reduction in profitability or growth, ESG will be parked alongside last year’s Christmas tree.
Profitability for who though?
I once attended a talk given by a banker who was in charge of the subprime division, after the collapse.
He admitted they were all expecting a large “adjustment”, and thought they were ready for it, but they didn’t expect the entire market to completely die – their mistake was to accept the advice of their computer models. But the computer models contain assumptions, and one of those assumptions is infinite liquidity – the computers assume you can always buy and sell. But during the crash nobody wanted to buy at any price – the market went outside the parameters of their models, so their models failed them.
The thing is though, in the days and weeks leading up to the “adjustment”, they kept selling their subprime products, at the pre-crash unadjusted price.
The “Owl” market, everyone wants to sell, but “ to who to who to who” as everyone rushes for the exit door LOL!
Where are the clients’ yachts?
At the bottom of Torquay Harbour
The BBC is gloating while completely not saying whose yacht it was, whether it had Lithium batteries on board or what/who may have caused it
While self-inflicting Severe Knickeritis Twistidus over a few gallons of diesel
Childishness in extremis
Perhaps this is one of them.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-61617224
That’s an interesting viewpoint, which will be worth watching. Many of the readers here will agree that Green investments are risky, based as they are on much false “science”
If the science turns out to be wrong, that’s the scientists fault – and they will simply claim they made an error. Since the scientists are not beneficiaries of the investments, they can’t be sued for being wrong. Since the investment advisers relied on scientific advice, its not their fault either.
BUT if the investment advisors are knowingly feeding their projected value models with wildly exaggerated assumptions, then selling their products on the basis of those projections, IMO that likely crosses the line into financial fraud.
Eric,
Who was it who said,
” If the climate science is found to be flawed, the scientists will blame the politicians, the politicians will blame the scientists and everyone will blame the media.”
They blame the media for the global cooling scare 😉
What happens when the media is financially supported by the government and the government is ‘penetrated’ by the World Economic Forum, as it is in Canada right now, according to Klaus Schwab?
Straight out of The Big Short.
Isn’t the interest rate projection the detail that Kirk exposes that would make this financial fraud, especially if the interest rate projection is dictated by politicians who are imbedded in the WEF.
Just came across this yesterday. Anti-awoke investment fund that’s challenging the ESG nonsense. Maybe they’ll hire Mr. Kirk.
“Strive Asset Management, backed by Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel and ex-biotech executive Vivek Ramaswamy, seeks to take on “the three largest U.S. asset managers — BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street,” arguing the firms have caused “consumer harms” such as high gas prices and pushed unfavorable social agendas, according to a press release p pool announcing the company’s launch.”
“Did HSBC Stuart Kirk Just Kill the Climate Investment Industry?”
I sure hope so!
As I see it, the “climate investment industry” is a house of cards standing on a foundation of shifting sands.
… and there aren’t even any real cards … they’re virtual cards, created by falsified data, held up by hurricane force hot air … even the shifting sands are CGI!!
If so, will he forever be remembered as Captain Kirk who killed the Borg Collective?
An apt comparison.
Another academic website devoted to wasting public resources by playing with models. Some people never left preschool.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain…
I wonder if Stuart is looking to start his own investment business.
If he does I’ll be looking at his prospectus.
Oh please OSD – this is a family blog!
Matbe.
Kirk made it abundantly clear he believes climate change is real, but it is not a financial risk worth worrying about.
_____________________________________________
And I believe climate change is real for the simple reason that climate has always changed, so a definition of what is meant by “climate change” above would be enlightening.
” so a definition of what is meant by “climate change” above would be enlightening.”
No, they don’t want to be nailed down to a specific defintion. They want “climate change” to mean whatever they want it to mean at the time. It’s a way of confusing the issues. Legitimate scientists would not be confusing the issues, they would be trying to clarify the issues.
Excellent point, thanks for the reply.
A quick Google search on “Climate Change Definition” finds:
cli·mate change
noun
a change in global or regional climate patterns, in particular a change apparent from the mid to late 20th century onwards and attributed largely to the increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide produced by the use of fossil fuels.
It is called *climate change* for the same reason they call CO2 carbon. Way too many people are ignorant of the difference and accept any *solution* to save them from some imaginary boogie man.
They call CO2 Carbon because it’s black: they need a bogey-man to frighten the kids.
A real scientist would distinguish between CO2 and Carbon.
I’ve actually saved this video in case it does get memory holed – but damn he just kept on firing broadside after broadside at the doomsters. Go Stuart Kirk!!
Made my day when I watched it 🙂
It was awesome.
HOW did you save it??
Search [How to save YouTube videos] using one of the more independent search engines
I’ve got a firefox plugin that lets me do that.
Works fine – many thanks! 🙂
An amazing presentation, you can hear much built up frustration in his voice.
The youtube disclaimer at the bottom of the video subtly suggesting the video is incorrect made my blood absolutely boil over. The Big Brother nitwit that put that there imagines they know more about the subject matter than I do deserves every bit of bad fortune that comes their way.
Downloading Stuart Kirk’s YouTube will eliminate the ability for this video to be censored, if FT or YouTube decide to remove it. Over the course of the WHO’s Wuhan Flu cultural revolution it became almost a matter of course to download any well thought out rebuttal of the ‘narrative’ as YouTube/Facebook or whatever would remove the content. I even had comments removed almost as I was typing.
Google owns Youtube and will not allow messaging it deems inaccurate to remain posted. Their motto “Do no evil” is truly laughable. They remove content, comments and shadowban routinely as well as post snide disclaimers and demonitise creators .
If they were honest about it they would rename the platform OurTube.
Doonman, they officially ditched “Do no evil” a few years ago. Makes you wonder why. (as if it’s not obvious)
All sensible people accept that the climate constantly changes. It’s what it does.
Humans have always adapted to our world. It’s what we do to survive, and boy do we do it well.
His reference to Amsterdam being 2metres below sea level exposes the piffle about sea level rises. It is no danger, just adapt.
The technology to allow us to live with the consequences of rising sea levels has been developed over centuries in the Netherlands. For those who don’t know, a third of the Netherlands is below sea level…_
https://www.netherlands-tourism.com/netherlands-sea-level/
Stuart Kirk’s broadside attack on the green investment industry may have done just this to the green investment industry. His attack may have stripped financial advisers who sell dubious green investments of their legal cover.
Everyone is falling for it. I just took a flight on United and OMG their wokism over “the climate problem” is sickening.
Buyer beware may indeed be just the message to bring needed objective rationality to this issue.
I dont think he is messiah who going to lead us out of the climate change abyss. But he is a breath a fresh for calling out the BS of the doom day cult. But I get the feeling he is simply sick of doing pointless climate change risk assessment documents and just want to make a bucket load of money out of “the transition” as he calls it at the end of the video.
Honesty is refreshing.
Where is the Stuart Kirk of healthcare?
Big Green is a mere tiddler compared to the $6 Trillion grubbing & gouging that goes on annually inside US Big Pharma.
Because Big Pharma does nothing to actually cure people, vast amounts of its products just cover up symptoms, make the disorders worse and milk the patients for every penny they can for as long as they can.
In collusion with Government and The Federal Reserve in particular
That is what Big Green is trying to emulate = to get The Fed to print them as much money as it does everyone else
and they’re off to ‘quite a good start’ eh not?
“Where is the Stuart Kirk of healthcare?”
I think the answer to that is quite straightforward. Lockdowns were imposed and there were only zoom/teams gatherings. Any deviation from the lockdown line was censored and often labelled as anti vax etc to demonise alternative approaches. Scientists from distinguished universities – ie the Great Barrington declaration – were publicly mocked and derided as cranks.
Kirk, I would argue, sneaked this one through.
“If Stuart Kirk’s devastating accusations are correct”
They are pretty much bang on the money (sic) and the penalty for heresy is excommunication.
I remember how people used to pride themselves on being strong and resilient. But several decades of indoctrination in schools and universities have fostered a culture of vulnerability, climate anxiety and induced gender related software glitches.
“Once, only soldiers had PTSD. Now authors pull it out of the bag after a bad review. One she / they person of my acquaintance identified as LGBTQWERTY – then upon getting married to a man announced that ‘they’ were ‘neurodiverse’. It’s as though some people can’t stand to be ordinary. But why not become extraordinary through your achievements, by what you do rather than what you are? Such self-diagnoses are as sad as giving yourself a nickname.”
https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/05/30/the-rise-of-the-worried-well/
Kirk’s presentation is up against socially engineered insanity and induced neuroses. Top man for risking it all for some truth.
“announced that ‘they’ were ‘neurodiverse’”
WTF does that mean?
(and I looked up “neurodiversity” – it’s not a condition that one can have)
the new age ENRON
and the insurers are making billions off it as well
As I have repeatedly written and said, the biggest risk comes from the proxy voting power of a handful of gargantuan investment managers and institutions such as BlackRock, Vanguard, Fidelity and the massive state, union and municipal pension funds like CalPERS and NYS retirement systems.
This is an interesting but predictable incident of an investment bank making a “gaffe”, which for politicians is when they accidentally tell the truth … or they intentionally tell the truth and their staffers try to dismiss it as a gaffe and their politician having “mis-spoke”.
It is also interesting that the Federal government and many state governments have for at least four decades promoted “woman owned businesses” and “minority owned businesses” and “black owned businesses” by setting aside quotas for such businesses in their contracting programs, knowing full well that many of the woman, minority, or black “owners” were just a front for others who really owned and controlled the businesses. That was fraud perpetrated by both the fake owners and by the government, of zero or more likely negative value to the taxpayers.
Yet, I don’t recall the financial industry going all in to promote investments in the so-called “disadvantaged business enterprises” … likely because the professionals recognized the DBEs as poor disreputable investment vehicles. Meanwhile today the major investment banks are pushing the green energy industry which are even more scammy than many DBEs. This is seemingly out of character.
Why so?
Hi Eric
I’m pleased that you are highlighting the Stuart Kirk’s possible effect on the ESG investments, wishing him good luck.
His future comments on the subject might have great difficulty in reaching wider audience, depriving smaller investors of a realistic prospects.
This website has thousands and thousands readers all over English speaking world, therefore as an editor I would suggest that you might consider inviting Stuart to do occasional essay for the WUWT readers, if need be anonymously since there is no censorship of views and opinions here.
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/stuart-kirk-267551b6
Stuart, if you’re reading this you’re very welcome to get in touch.
I thought about reaching out but I suspect Stuart’s inbox is pretty full – I’m happy to hang back and give the guy some space.
What Stuart really needs is some good HR advice as he progresses through the “demotion/dismissal” process. If he takes HSBC to court (for wrongful HR treatment), a number of experts will be called to give evidence about the “facts” of the matter. Now, if he calls the “right” experts, he could do a fair bit more legal damage to the climate catastrophe cause.
His defense should focus on the financial catastrophe of fossil fuels and the peril of green investments. And for the sake of the world he should not agree to a payout settlement.
Perhaps Mr Kirk had something like this in mind:
https://www.netzerowatch.com/bank-of-england-used-false-data-and-discredited-scenarios-to-exaggerate-climate-costs/
Good spot. The BoE is already lacking in credibility. Carney was a green zealot, his successor has thus far been a nonentity.
Yep: but at ~£500K a year, I suspect he doesn’t care!
“The resultant public outcry was huge. Many investors and climate experts – and others besides – voiced their horror on social media at what they felt was an ill-conceived point of view. ”
What, really? Actual climate experts believe the RCP 8.5 hype? Come on, they know 2 to 3 is most likely.
“Actual climate experts believe the RCP 8.5 hype? Come on, they know 2 to 3 is most likely.”
These climate experts, as they like to be called, are no different to the blind men and the elephant. Just that much more full of it.
I don’t know who Sharon is, but she must be fuming. Great talk, and interesting premise in this post.
#HSBCKnew
and –
#NASAKnew
As a risk assessment manager surely he’s doing both his bank and his customers the ultimately service of accurately assessing any alleged climate change risk?
The fact he dismissed the risk as irrelevant, due to human ingenuity and innovation, is neither here nor there.