Investment giant BlackRock Inc. will need to hit its staff-diversity targets and other sustainable-business goals to keep its corporate borrowing costs down.
The firm struck a financing deal with a group of banks that links its lending costs for a $4.4 billion credit facility to its ability to achieve certain goals, like meeting targets for women in senior leadership and Black and Latino employees in its workforce.
The firm plans to boost the share of Black and Latino people in its U.S. workforce 30% by 2024, a spokesman said. It aims to increase the share of women in its senior leadership ranks by 3% each year.
BlackRock’s progress on growing assets in funds focused on companies with high environmental, social and governance ratings will also impact its lending costs. The firm aims to grow the roughly $200 billion it manages in so-called sustainable strategies to $1 trillion by 2030.
Depending on the number of targets it meets or falls short of, BlackRock’s lending costs could rise or fall.
