Will palm oil stocks prosper with the end of ESG?

A case of mistaken identity has been on my mind. In 2006, BBC London wanted to interview technology journalist Guy Kewney on TV. The receptionist let another man called Guy Goma, who had come for a job interview, into the studio. Goma had applied for a job as a data cleanser. He appeared on live TV where he fielded questions with calmness. The right Guy watched with consternation in the lobby.

I faced a similar issue during a trip to London in 2019. I was taking a giant palm oil plantation company to meet investors. That company had palm oil plantations that were seven times the land mass of Singapore. We were supposed to meet fund managers who held assets of over US$2 billion in assets under management.

However, when we arrived at the meeting venues, the fund managers were absent. Instead, there were environment, sustainability and governance (ESG) experts. The questions that the company faced were not about its financial statements, but about the treatment of natural rainforests.

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