Holy crap, is this ethical investing?
Or are they foreseeing legal issues that make it a bad investment...
> the way the company employs its riders is not socially acceptable, and poses a risk to its future.
Ah, it's the latter.
Or are they foreseeing legal issues that make it a bad investment...
> the way the company employs its riders is not socially acceptable, and poses a risk to its future.
Ah, it's the latter.
They probably forecast legal issues that make it a bad investment, and then will say it's not socially acceptable for the PR.
I mean, I doubt that Deliveroo labour standards are actually worse, for example, than a cambodian clothing manufacturer which was scored as one of the worst in the world for a lack of "forced labour safeguards". Aberdeen Standard (one of the companies criticising deliverro) proudly states on their website that their investments in this manufacturer gave great returns for their innvestors, while poo-pooing Deliveroo for labour standards. Hmm, I detect a possible contradiction...
In their eyes, slave labor is unethical in western countries and business as usual in rest of the world.
It's bad for business to do so, but it's happening more and more frequently that things like not giving your workers sufficient breaks/pension contributions/healthcare/etc can after-the-fact be corrected leaving a big liability for that kind of behaviour.
Obviously any country that gets a reputation for changing laws after-the-fact will soon lose all outside investment... So it isn't a clear win.
In the long term, the driver compensation will also go up - either as a result of either regulation or – more likely – driver collective action. Meanwhile, these investment funds are missing out on the birth of new basic service industry, and by extension guilty of mismanaging their customers' funds.