Zeus: The coming takeover battles for the climate transition

With oil companies flush with cash, is a period of energy consolidation inevitable?

David and Goliath by Daniele da Volterra, Musée du Louvre. Photo: Wikimedia.

(David Callaway is founder and Editor-in-Chief of Callaway Climate Insights. He is the former president of the World Editors Forum, Editor-in-Chief of USA Today and MarketWatch, and CEO of TheStreet Inc.)

SAN FRANCISCO (Callaway Climate Insights) — It happens in every bear market cycle. As the market begins to recover, and stocks are cheap, the richest companies look for bargains.

This time the richest companies are the oil giants, and the bargains are the recently recharged clean energy stocks. Imagine if ExxonMobil XOM 0.00%↑ made a bid for SunRun RUN 0.00%↑ or First Solar FSLR 0.00%↑), and you have an idea of the chaos that first bid will cause in the environmental, social and governance spectrum.

For most of the past five years, during the rise of the ESG climate investing fund surge to the tune of some $400 billion, investors have fallen into two camps.