Companies significantly downsizing DEI policies
Most of the largest publicly traded alternative asset managers in the US have removed significant portions of language related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives from their annual filings to the SEC authority, a study by US financial data firm PitchBook shows. The most significant changes appear between 2023 and 2024. President Donald Trump’s executive order to stop federal DEI programs had a massive trickle-down effect, PitchBook reports.
“Within a month, the likes of Citigroup, Deloitte, Goldman Sachs and Google had rolled back diversity policies.”
“The changes are a response to mounting investor scrutiny and the Trump administration’s pushback against DEI practices, which the GPs say could leave their firms vulnerable to lawsuits, mounting compliance costs and fundraising challenges.”
PitchBook studied the acronym “DEI” and the word “diversity” in annual filings of the seven largest publicly traded alternative asset managers in the US.
The Carlyle Group, for example, removed all but two mentions of DEI in a report for fiscal year 2024, down from 37 mentions in 2023.
In 2023, the firm included initiatives like its DEI leadership network (a group of portfolio company CEOs looking to advance diversity) and an incentive awards program for diversity in its operational and strategic highlights.
Carlyle, Blue Owl, Ares Management, TPG, Apollo Global Management and KKR all cited Trump’s executive orders on DEI as one of the primary risk factors to their firms, PitchBook reports.
“Companies use these filings to communicate important information to investors and the public, including risk factors related to timely issues like regulatory, economic and political uncertainty.”
“The managers wrote that anti-DEI and ESG sentiment and legislation could put them at risk of being the subjects of compliance investigations and threaten their firms’ fundraising abilities, the profitability of projects that rely on government programs and the price of their common stock.”
“Companies are in a position where some of the same initiatives they put in place to protect themselves from discrimination claims are now being used for reverse discrimination claims,” says John Solorzano, a partner in law firm Vinson & Elkins’ ESG practice.
In 2024, these references were replaced with a line about “anti-ESG” and “anti-DEI” policies posing a regulatory threat to the firm.
The report says that Blackstone was the first to remove large portions of DEI language from its annual report amid shareholder scrutiny that began before the Trump presidency. From 2022 to 2023, the firm removed nine references and, in its 2024 report, it had zero mentions of diversity or DEI.
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