Contributed by A. Reader

Who better to represent Canada than Mark Wiseman former senior managing director and global head of active equities at BlackRock Inc. in New York.

NEW YORK, May 20, 2024 (Reuters) – BlackRock (BLK.N) was sued for $20 million by a whistleblowing former vice president who said it fired him after he objected to a colleague’s self-dealing, and was forced to shut down a search engine for monitoring client discussions about illegal investments, including in China.

In a complaint on Saturday, Hamdan Azhar said the world’s largest asset manager ordered him in March 2022 to stop work on Trend Spotter, which he had developed, and transfer his projects to Rightpoint, where the husband of former boss Tiffany Perkins-Munn worked.

…The New York-based company ended March with $10.5 trillion of assets under management.

…Last summer, the bipartisan House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party began seeking information on whether BlackRock and index provider MSCI (MSCI.N) facilitated investments into blacklisted Chinese companies.

In April, the committee found that Wall Street, through index fund investments, channeled $6.5 billion in 2023 into 63 Chinese companies flagged by the U.S. government for supporting China’s military or human rights abuses.

The committee called the activity “not illegal,” and urged Congress to pass laws restricting such investments. BlackRock and MSCI have said they complied with U.S. laws.

Azhar said he joined BlackRock in February 2020 as head of data science for global marketing.

His lawsuit in New York state court in Manhattan seeks $10 million each in compensatory damages and punitive damages for violating state labor law...

BlackRock whistleblower sues over firing

Prominent Canadian businessman and lawyer Mark Wiseman will leave BlackRock amid a violation of the company’s policy on relationships in the workplace, Bloomberg News reported. 

Wiseman’s departure effectively ends his career as a possible CEO contender at the global investment firm, which he joined in 2016 after serving as CEO of CPP Investment Board. 

Mark Wiseman to leave BlackRock

What is the CPP Investment Bank?

CPP Investments (formerly Canada Pension Plan Investment Board) isn’t a traditional “bank” but a massive, independent, Crown corporation that professionally manages the funds of the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) to ensure long-term retirement security for over 22 million Canadians, investing globally in public stocks, real estate, infrastructure, and private equity to grow the fund beyond government reach.

Beyond government reach?

What They Do:

• “Investment Management: They act as a global asset manager, investing the CPP Fund across diverse asset classes like public equities, private equity, real estate, infrastructure, and fixed income.“Long-Term Focus: Their primary goal is to maximize long-term returns for the CPP fund without undue risk, operating at arm’s length from the government.”“Fund Sustainability: They ensure the CPP remains sustainable for future generations by growing the contributions made by working Canadians and their employers.” 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Wiseman

In 2014, Wiseman co-founded the Century Initiative with Dominic Barton. It is a charity focused on increasing Canada’s population to 100 million by 2100...

In 2016, as a member of then finance minister Bill Morneau‘s Advisory Council on Economic Growth, both Wiseman and Dominic Barton advocated for increasing immigration targets to 450,000 a year, with a focus on top business talent and international students, in order to “raise the living standards for all Canadians.” Wiseman and the council argued that without significant immigration changes Canada would fall outside the top 45 nations in population by 2100 and would become “increasingly irrelevant over time.” In 2016, Canada was ranked 38th by population, lower than countries such as Thailand, Mexico, and Uganda.

From 2016 to 2019, Wiseman was a Senior Managing Director at BlackRock, Global Head of Active Equities, Chairman of its alternatives business, and Chairman of BlackRock’s Global Investment Committee. He was also on BlackRock’s Global Executive Committee. On December 5, 2019, Wiseman was fired from his position at BlackRock following a failure to report a consensual relationship with a subordinate employee under his reporting line. in violation of the company’s relationship at work policy. 

Wiseman stated in an internal memo “I engaged in a consensual relationship with one of our colleagues without reporting it. I regret my mistake and I accept responsibility for my actions.“

And now?

1/ Mr Carney’s best friend is Canada’s Ambassador to the US and chief trade negotiator. Hardly American at all!

2/ Given their wildly enthusiastic corporate promise that AI will all but eliminate millions of “useless” human employment, where will those new 60 million immigrants find work?

3/ It might matter. No?

x