Impact investing is having a moment in the Hollywood sun or, rather, shade.
In the critically acclaimed HBO television show Industry, which returned Sunday night, the new plotlines around impact investing, ESG and the green transition could have been ripped from the headlines – of ImpactAlpha.
Over the previous two seasons, the salacious trading floor drama, set in London, has followed the career paths – and, perhaps more importantly, the romantic entanglements – of a batch of 20-somethings working for the fictional multinational investment bank and financial services company Pierpoint.
For the majority of Industry’s audience, the fast-paced and rarely explained financial jargon is just a backdrop for the sex – of which there is a lot – and the show’s commentaries on power, money, and work. But, showrunners Mickey Down and Konrad Kay are both ex-bankers, and the show is faithful to, and yes, highly critical of, the financial industry.
HBO is betting big on Season Three. The network has moved the show to its marquee Sunday night slot (where it takes over from the Game of Thrones spinoff House of the Dragon). Industry has brought in some big new names and will be broadening its scope beyond the trading floor.
Viewers should not expect a rosy portrait of impact investing– or, really, of anything related to finance. The show’s protagonists are by and large a cutthroat power-hungry and money-loving bunch.
That’s not unlike impact investing’s previous star turn, on Showtime’s Billions, another saga of wealth and corruption, co-created by financial journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin. But it’s more hard-edged than impact’s portrayal on mercifully short-lived Netflix series Sex / Life, in which the Cooper Connelly character was an impact investor who raises a biotech venture fund. Connelly tells a group of undergraduates, “Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk — their dream wasn’t to make money, their dream was to change the future for the better. Money’s just what they got for being right.” Sure, Coop, as Salon put it at the time.
Predistribution Initiative’s Delilah Rothenburg hit a nerve in 2022 with her call for a Silicon Valley-type parody series around impact investing – which led to discussions with some Hollywood producer-types. Stay tuned.
In a post on LinkedIn, Dmitriy Ioselevich of 17 Communications complained that Industry’s characters interchangeably use terms like ESG, ethical investing and impact investing. “I’m hoping future episodes pay a bit more attention to the nuance, and avoid sweeping generalizations about a concept that is ultimately designed to improve decision-making by businesses and investors,” he writes. “If the showrunners are going to build an entire season around something as charged as ESG, let’s at least try to get the basics right.”
Saying the quiet part out loud
Over the course of the season we’ll find out where the show truly stands on sustainable investing. Spoiler alert! It’s not looking great for impact.
In the season opener we find our main characters at Pierpoint gearing up for the IPO of Lumi, a clean tech company that promises cheap renewable power for the masses.
It’s the main topic of discussion at a meeting of the firm’s London-based partners. The female CFO begins the meeting by stating that “Pierpoint has been overexposed in sales and trading. This has been ameliorated by our commitment to the green shift.”
The firm’s head of fixed income continues, “Lumi is just the first in a pipeline of environmental, social and governance oriented deals. We have a suite of in-demand ethical and social impact IPOs that we won over our competitors.”
An old, white and male partner with a posh accent questions the whole strategy: “ESG is a great market tool, and I’m sure it’s helped Pierpoint’s stock price to be included in all the ethical investment baskets. But shouldn’t we be wary of increasingly gearing our balance sheet toward a fad?”
“Excuse me?” asks the incredulous Eric Tao, the only person of color in the meeting, who has just been made partner.
The posh partner continues: “Woke investing and green washing. So our business model isn’t a rigorous balance sheet examination. We just look at the org chart and then – Chatham House rules apply — pray that the CEO is a black lesbian with one leg, then, without even meeting her, sign ‘they them’ a blank check. Have I got that right?”
“I’m sorry. Chatham House Rules means carte blanche for bigotry?” retorts the CFO.
Greenwashing – or fraud?
Lumi’s founder Henry Muck, played by Game of Thrones’ Kit Harrington, is a slick young aristocrat who, according to a concerned early investor, is minimizing the company’s debt and fudging the upside. Muck offers to buy back the investors shares. Now our Pierpoint “heroes” need to find someone to sell the extra shares to.
A potential buyer is the woman-led impact hedge fund FutureDawn, which is already set to buy a significant number of Lumi shares when the market opens the next day. Hard-nosed but recently fired Pierpoint trader, Harper Stern has found herself at the bottom of the org-chart at FutureDawn.
When we first see Harper at her new job she is being chided for throwing her paper coffee cup in the trash instead of the recycling bin.
To get her boss on the phone with Pierpoint, Harper walks in on a spirited discussion between Anna Gearing, the head of the fund, and one of her portfolio managers Petra Koenig. It seems that Gearing is micromanaging Koenig’s trades, trying to make sure they’re sufficiently aligned with the firm’s values. Koenig turns to Harper and asks, “Do you think ethical investment actually works, or is it just a palliative we give ourselves to feel better?”
Harper’s diplomatic reply: “I agree with Anna, impact investing is the foundational ethos of this company.”
To which Koenig retorts to Gearing: “See, I don’t think anybody’s thinking for themselves around here anymore.”
Harper, desperate to get back to trading, finds Koenig later that day and asks to finish her earlier thought: “ESG is a fad. Ethical investing is a fad. Everybody and their snotty brother claim to be ESG. The assets that qualify as it are so bid, the valuations are making them stupid investments now anyway, not to mention macro headwinds, the election, lack of clear sighted investment in fossil fuels.”
She goes on: “Really, it’s like a utopian opiate for morons who believe in a better world, like, and Lumi? Do you really believe that cheap green energy for the masses exists, or is someone spinning a story?”
The next morning, as Muck prepares to open the London Stock Exchange, the power – which Lumi provides – cuts out. And that’s the end of episode one.
Things do not seem like they’re heading in a great direction for Lumi, Impact or ESG. But, Industry is not a world of blacks and whites. These are complicated and dark characters with cynical takes.
It remains to be seen where the show stands on impact investing, let alone what audiences make of it. Pro or con, impact has gone mainstream.
