Former CFO Peter Taylor on Divestment and Other Topics

Former UC CFO Peter Taylor spoke yesterday at a program arranged by the UCLA ERRC which took place at the Tamkin auditorium in the Reagan Hospital.  Got enough abbreviations in that sentence?  You know what UC and UCLA stand for.  CFO = Chief Financial Officer.  ERRC = Emeriti/Retirees Relations Center.  Since Taylor is now the former CFO, he was freer to talk than when he was an UC exec.  Probably, his most frank remarks involved his opinion of fossil fuel (and other) divestment movements.   

You could say that having resigned as CFO, he no longer has to hold his views on that topic close to divest. :)

Taylor said that the Regents should just focus on the return on their money and avoid “social” and “political” considerations.  The Regents have yet to act on the fossil fuel issue.  But they previously divested from tobacco and guns.  Taylor was quite critical of the tobacco divestment in particular.  His remarks came about during the question and answer period.  Yours truly admits to asking the divestment question that triggered the remarks.

Audio of the full talk (about 1 hour) is at  

The divestment excerpt (about 6 minutes) is at:

We’ll see how the Regents react to these views at their next meeting in July.

PS: You likely did not know that there was a fancy auditorium in the Reagan Hospital.  Now you do - and you can add it to the list of alternatives to constructing a Grand Hotel/conference center on the grounds that there is not enough capacity on campus to hold conferences and meetings.