Will Divestiture Affect the Oil Companies?
A reader notes: The share price of oil companies has been more affected by the low price of oil due to oversupply than any “ethical” investor movement.
Yes, that’s been true thus far. But does the future always look like the past? This is a movement that’s growing to huge proportions, and it’s hard to imagine how greater supply of and less demand for oil stocks isn’t going to drive up their cost of capital.
Oh c’mon, actually the size of “ethical” investment is actually decreasing, not increasing.
Universities, churches etc do hold substantial share portfolios, compared to the average person, but in comparison to the sort of capital investment and funding available to major multi-national corporations, (especially oil companies), it’s insignificant.
You are correct, no one can be sure of anything in the far distant future, but that wasn’t the context of your original assumption which attempted to show that Exxon was concerned by the consequences of current or past ethical investment.