BlackRock Faces Activist Proposal to Split CEO, Chairman Roles

Bluebell Capital Partners is escalating its activist campaign against BlackRock Inc. with a shareholder proposal to bar Larry Fink from serving as both chief executive officer and chairman.

The activist investor is seeking an overhaul of the board and calling for an independent chair to increase oversight, BlackRock said Thursday in its annual proxy filing.

For about three years, London-based Bluebell has been targeting BlackRock for taking contradictory and inconsistent approaches to ESG investing that expose the firm to increasing risks of so-called greenwashing.

“There is an inherent conflict of interest for a CEO to act as her/his own ...