“How are you doing in your bunker?” I asked the chairman of the insignificantly-sized investment company Kermitted Asset Management as he appeared on my computer screen last week. “You’re using that line a lot these days,” he replied, foregoing any proper greeting. “Very possibly,” I conceded. “Although, in my defence, you are the only person I know who actually has a bunker built into their home.”
“Best bonus I ever spent,” smiled the chairman. “And I’m doing pretty well, thank you for asking – though it is all getting a bit ‘Average Groundhog Day’. Like Bill Murray’s character in the film, I’m largely living the same day over and over and, while it’s not a bad sort of a day, neither am I in the Virgin Islands, meeting a girl, eating lobster, drinking pina coladas and then at sunset …”
“Ah yes – like sea otters,” I interrupted quickly. “I guess the only tropical sunsets we’re seeing these days are on a screen – and it’s just not the same.” “Speak for yourself,” snorted the chairman. “Some of the screens I run down here are so large I swear I’m getting a suntan.” “Or radiation poisoning,” I muttered under my breath before saying more loudly: “So your bunker’s like the bridge of the Enterprise?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said the chairman. “It’s a more modern version of the Bond villain’s HQ in Tomorrow Never Dies – you know, when Jonathan Pryce plays the baddie who isn’t Rupert Murdoch?” “Sounds about right,” I nodded. “And what’s keeping you and your screens busy at the moment?” “Ratings,” the chairman replied. “Really?” I asked. “I thought you had all the fund ratings money can buy.”
“Technically I have all the fund ratings money can buy from everyone who is prepared to sell them to me,” the chairman clarified. “In this instance, however, I’m not talking about getting ratings so much as giving them – specifically appropriately badging businesses as ESG-friendly or not.” “Crikey – that’s butch,” I said. “I admire your ambition, of course, but you’re talking about the current Hold Grail of responsible investing.
“Off the top of my head, I can think of half a dozen companies now striving to emerge as the undisputed VHS of ESG ratings – and a couple of the big boys haven’t even entered the race yet. At the same time, everyone keeps bumping up against the same old problem with responsible-type investing – which is that nobody can come up with a common framework of the thing they all agree looks, smells and tastes likes ESG.
“So, in the nicest possible way, what leads you to think Kermitted Asset Management has cooked up a special recipe – either inside or out of your bunker – that will stop it being one of many Betamax losers in this particular war?” “First up – solid use of the videotape analogy,” nodded the chairman. “Though surely the Blu-ray versus HD DVD tussle referenced in Tropic Thunder would have been a more up-to-date call.
“Still, what makes you think I have any interest in actually winning this race? As you put it so brutally – if correctly – we don’t stand a chance. What’s more, the whole thing will be exhausting. Sure, if my instincts are anything to go by – and you know they are – there will be a steady stream of the desperate and the hopeful clamouring at our door for a ‘Five Lilypad’ rating – or whatever we end up choosing.
“But there’s only so much ‘Oh why didn’t you rate us?’ whining anyone can bear – take it from me, I’m usually on the other side of that equation. And then there’s what happens if you take this rating thing to its logical conclusion – we’d end up having to assess Kermitted as an ESG-friendly business or otherwise. And where would that leave us?”
“‘Otherwise’, I’d imagine,” I replied. “So what have I missed here? Why get involved in the first place?” “The only reason anyone gets involved in ratings,” said the chairman. “To get bought out by Morningstar, of course.” “Oh,” I said. “Hang on – isn’t that basically the plot of a Simpsons episode?” “Very possibly,” replied the chairman. “Do you think we might be watching too much telly at the moment?”
