A few years ago, it would have been hard to imagine an activist hedge fund gaining three board seats at America’s largest oil and gas company. A fledgling fund, Engine No. 1, with just 0.02 percent ownership in ExxonMobil, voted out three board members at the oil giant in 2021, scoring a victory for the climate change movement.
The fund had backing from “big three” institutional investment firms BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street.
