Today, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Chairwoman of the House Committee on Financial Services, and Congresswoman Joyce Beatty (D-OH), Chair of the Subcommittee on Diversity and Inclusion, sent requests to the nation’s 31 largest investment firms—those with $400 billion or more of assets under management—for data on their diversity and inclusion. 

“We are making progress to ensure a comprehensive understanding of diversity and inclusion performance in the financial services industry,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter. “However, this cannot be achieved until organizations, especially the largest investment managers, disclose their diversity data and policies with the Offices of Minority and Women Inclusion, Congress, and the public.”

The requests are part of a longstanding effort to hold the financial services sector accountable and provide the American public with a complete picture of how financial firms are meeting their commitments to diversity and inclusion.

“With these data requests to America’s largest investment firms, we are continuing to hold the financial services industry accountable for diversity and inclusion,” said Chairwoman Waters. “Generally, investment firms have failed to prioritize diversity and inclusion on their staffs and boards, and have also failed to prioritize doing business with diverse-owned asset managers. Chair Beatty and I are requesting this information both to gain specific data about the diversity and inclusion policies, practices and outcomes from this sector, and to make clear that these firms will be held publicly accountable.”

“Investment managers play a critical role in our economy and have an enormous impact on countless families’ lives,” said Chair Beatty. “It’s imperative stakeholders be given access to related diversity data to ensure accountability, transparency, and greater confidence in the very people Americans entrust with their livelihood and financial future.”

The lawmakers requested information about each institution’s diversity and inclusion data and policies from 2016 through the present, including:

• workforce and board diversity;
  
• spending with diverse suppliers, including the use of diverse asset management firms; and
  
• challenges implementing diversity and inclusion policies and practices.
  

See here for a sample letter.

See below for the full list of firms that received requests:

BlackRock
Vanguard Group
State Street Global
Fidelity Investments
J.P. Morgan Chase
Capital Group
Bank of New York Mellon
Goldman Sachs
Prudential Financial
Northern Trust
Invesco
T. Rowe Price
Wellington Management
Morgan Stanley
Wells Fargo
Nuveen
Legg Mason
Ameriprise Financial
Principal Financial
Affiliated Managers Group
Franklin Templeton
AllianceBernstein
Dimensional Fund Advisors
MetLife Investment
New York Life Investments
Geode Capital Management
Federated Hermes
Blackstone Group
MassMutual
Eaton Vance
Charles Schwab Investment

In February of 2020, Chairwoman Waters and Chair Beatty released a multimedia Majority staff report entitled, “Diversity and Inclusion: Holding America’ Large Banks Accountable.”

The report followed requests to 44 financial institutions to obtain their diversity and inclusion data and policies. The data requests were designed to inform Congress of the diversity levels, policies and practices of the country’s biggest banks.

As one of her first official acts as Chair, Chairwoman Waters created the historic Subcommittee on Diversity and Inclusion at the beginning of the 116th Congress.

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