Payden & Rygel - 1792 Exchange

Rating Overview

Payden & Rygel is Medium Risk.

Payden & Rygel is Medium Risk. The company often yields to political activism in shaping corporate governance, potentially alienating consumers, dividing employees, and harming shareholders. The company implements race and identity-based policies that replace merit, excellence, and integrity with preferential treatment and outcomes. The company occasionally embraces corporate initiatives that redirect its central focus from business goals to partisan policies and divisive issues at times. This approach fails to safeguard free exercise, free speech, and free enterprise.

Rating Criteria

Corporate Weaponization Risk Levels
Criteria	Risk Level
Cancellations	Medium Risk
Discriminatory Philanthropy	Lower Risk
Employment Protection	High Risk

Corporate Weaponization ⓘ

Corporate Governance and Public Policy Risk Levels
Criteria	Risk Level
Advocacy Bias	High Risk
Funding	Lower Risk
Political Actions	No Data

Corporate Governance and Public Policy ⓘ

Rating Criteria Detail

Criteria Risk Level Rationale

Corporate Weaponization

Criteria:

Has canceled customers, suppliers, or vendors due to their political views or religious beliefs OR corporately boycotts, divests, or sanctions regions, people groups, or industries.

Risk Level:

Medium

Rationale:

Payden & Rygel is a signatory of the Principles for Responsible Investment, incorporating ESG issues into investment analysis, decision-making, and other business practices (1)(2). The company integrates ESG into its business practices. From its Stewardship Code: “We focus on tangible ESG integration; we have built proprietary tools, driven by third party data, to analyse and manage portfolios for a range of ESG factors” (3). However, Payden & Rygel has not canceled customers, suppliers, or vendors based on political views or religious beliefs (4).

Criteria:

Charitable giving (including employee matching programs) policies or practices discriminate against charitable organizations based on views or religious beliefs.

Risk Level:

Lower

Rationale:

Payden & Rygel does not discriminate against charitable organizations based on views or beliefs (1)(2). The company’s charitable giving focus areas are “educational institutions, cultural institutions, and hospitals” (3).

Criteria:

Employment policies fail to protect against viewpoint or other discrimination and/or are ideological in nature.

Risk Level:

High

Rationale:

Payden & Rygel appears to prioritize diversity over merit in its recruitment, hiring and promotions. From its Diversity and Inclusion Mission Statement: “To achieve this, we are focusing on advancing our progress and participation in the following four areas: Recruitment, Retention, and Promotion Practices – drive a deliberate effort to seek diverse pools of qualified candidates across all positions (race and ethnic origin, gender,
sexual orientation, educational background, non-traditional careers, etc.); develop, retain, and
promote diverse talent from within the firm” (1). The company does not provide viewpoint protections for its employees (2).

Corporate Governance and Public Policy

Criteria:

Uses corporate reputation to support causes, organizations, or policies hostile to freedom of expression.

Risk Level:

High

Rationale:

Payden & Rygel is a signatory to the CFA Institute’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Code, indicating its support of DEI in its recruitment, hiring, onboarding, and promotions. Furthermore, the company pledges to integrate DEI into its policies, promote DEI in the investment industry, and provide regular reporting on its DEI metrics to the CFA Institute (1)(2)(3). The company was part of the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative prior to NZAM’s suspension in 2025. Its membership indicated a commitment to carbon neutrality with its investments by 2050 (4)(5)(6). Payden & Rygel is a member of Climate Action 100+, committed to carbon neutrality by 2050 (7). The company supports DEI within its business practices, hosting a Diversity and Inclusion Committee (8). Payden & Rygel supports ESG within its business practices. From its Stewardship Code: “The firm aims to ensure applicable consistency in our approach to stewardship across the firm and our product range through the global and group-wide ESG Committee” (9).