Larry Fink fears for the energy transition, warns of massive ‘market arbitrage’

Larry Fink fears for the energy transition, warns of massive ‘market arbitrage’

LONDON — Larry Fink, chair and CEO of , says the so-called energy transition toward greener power has to be radically rethought and blasted oil firms for selling out to private companies. Speaking at the Green Horizon Summit chaired by CNBC's Julianna Tatelbaum during the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, Fink praised public companies for increasing their reporting of emissions but criticized oil firms for selling parts of their businesses to private investors, and said it could create huge market arbitrage. "We can't just ask public companies to move forward without the rest of society. It's going to create the biggest capital market arbitrage. We're seeing that more hydrocarbons have been sold to private companies in the last few years than almost any time ever. That doesn't change the world at all. It actually makes it, the world even worse, because it moves from public disclosed companies to opaque private enterprises. So, the mission is failing if that's all you're doing," he stated. Arbitrage refers to market inefficiencies that allow investors or companies to profit. Some oil firms are selling their more polluting assets to private companies, creating more of a green narrative for shareholders. But those assets still