Reuters Sustainable Finance Newsletter - A post-Davos message from Motor City

By Ross Kerber

Jan 28 (Reuters) - This is the weekly Reuters Sustainable Finance Newsletter, which you can sign up for here .

One of my favorite local music jams is known as the "WSU Bluegrass Band," where the acronym stands for "Whoever Shows Up." Showing up in person sends a message that you care, which is what BlackRock BLK.N CEO Larry Fink was getting at in a recent speech in Davos that you can read about in my column this week, linked below.

I'm also including a mini-story about a recent policy change by U.S. securities regulators that could further quiet shareholder activists. Last, don't miss our piece about the "Friends of Steel" in India, never a good look in an antitrust situation.

Please follow me on LinkedIn and/or Bluesky. You can reach me via ross.kerber@thomsonreuters.com

Detroit Calling: a post-Davos message from Motor City

Maybe you caught the speech by BlackRock CEO Larry Fink at last week's Davos conference, coverage of which focused on his worries that capitalism has undermined itself with too much inequality, and that artificial intelligence is poised to accelerate the trend.

Fink, who now helps lead the conference organizer, The World Economic Forum, also said to expect it will "start doing something new: showing up - and listening - in the places where the modern world is actually built. Davos, yes. But also places like Detroit and Dublin - and cities like Jakarta and Buenos Aires."

So, duh, I got in touch with Sandy Baruah, the president of the Detroit Regional Chamber, a big area lobbying and networking group for business leaders, to ask what Fink could expect to hear if he shows up.

You can click here to read a transcript and see a video of our conversation.

Company news

Netflix's NFLX.O $83 billion bid for Warner Bros Discovery WBD.O deserves a full competition review, British lawmakers and former policymakers said in a letter to the head of the country's Competition and Markets Authority.

After laying off 1,000 workers this month, Citigroup C.N will cut more employees in March as CEO Jane Fraser looks to cut costs and fix regulatory problems to catch up with rivals.

Four top Indian steelmakers talked too much to rivals about their pricing plans via WhatsApp chats with great names like "Friends of Steel" and "Tycoons," an antitrust investigation found.

The CEOs of 3M, MMM.N Target TGT.N and UnitedHealth UNH.N weighed in on the Trump administration's heavy local immigration-enforcement effort. Although the remarks from Minnesota company leaders were bland calls for calm, they signaled the operation is "losing its social acceptance," a top state Democrat told me.

Wells Fargo WFC.N cut ties with top proxy adviser Institutional Shareholder Services, the latest pressure on the firm following a similar move by JPMorgan Chase.JPM.N

Shareholder activists go home

On January 23, guidance from U.S. securities regulator staff said they will object in some cases where shareholder activists try to disseminate their messages via the SEC's EDGAR online-filing system, such as those when the filer owns less than $5 million worth of a company's stock.

The move likely marks a further challenge for small-time investor activists, already under pressure from prior moves by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission which now includes no Democrats. A Gibson Dunn memo notes the SEC can remove a submission from EDGAR if it believes the message is "misleading or unauthorized."

Sanford Lewis, an attorney representing activists, said he and allies will meet with SEC officials to ask what the new guidance means in practice. He told me he worries that "It's a plutocratic position that if you want to have a voice on the SEC platform, you’ve got to have a $5 million entrance fee."

An agency spokesman said the chance for activists to file so-called "exempt solicitations" was not the original intended use of the process. "Over the years, companies have expressed concerns that such misuse has caused confusion among their investor base," the spokesman told Reuters via e-mail.

What happens if the SEC staff objects? The spokesman said the staff "will take appropriate action depending on the particular facts and circumstances surrounding each instance."