State officials are raising concerns and speaking out against a new type of company designation: Natural Asset Company.
A proposal by the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) to create and list Natural Asset Company (NAC) on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) could trigger the “largest land grab ever,” according to some of the nation’s top financial officials.
“I am joining my fellow conservative state fiscal officers to shine a light on a potentially economically devastating and dangerous new effort from @SECGov to create a new type of company called a Natural Asset Company, which could set off a massive land grab and give our adversaries a powerful tool to undermine our ability to compete in key sectors of the global economy,” said Glenn Hegar, Texas comptroller of public accounts, in a post on X.
An NAC is a new class of publicly listed company. Such companies are formed to “capture the intrinsic and productive value of nature and provide a store of value based on vital assets,” including “forests, wetlands, and coral reefs, as well as working lands such as farms,” as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Intrinsic Exchange Group (IEG), which the NYSE owns, is the organization behind the idea. According to IEG, NACs are formed to “address the large and complex challenges of climate change and the transition to a more sustainable economy.” NACs do this by capturing equity through the “value of natural assets and the ecosystem services they produce,” IEG states on its website.
However, many of the nation’s top financial officials believe the NYSE and IEG are obfuscating the true purpose behind NACs, which pose a “significant risk” for rural economies.
“The proposed creation of Natural Asset Companies is one of the greatest threats to rural communities in the history of our country,” said Marlo Oaks, state treasurer of Utah.
“Under the proposal, private interests, including foreign-controlled sovereign wealth funds, could use their capital to purchase or manage farmland, national and state parks, and other mineral-rich areas and stop essential economic activities like farming, grazing, and energy extraction,” added Oaks.
The State Financial Officers Foundation (SFOF), a national organization comprising state treasurers, auditors, and other state financial officials committed to promoting economic freedom, developed an infographic that details the hidden dangers behind such a class of company.
“As the IEG explains, the core purpose of a NAC is to convert natural assets into financial capital. They are trying to do this by getting rights to productive use of various types of land — owned by federal, state, and local governments, as well as land owned by private entities and individuals as well,” SFOF states in the infographic.
“The idea behind this is to take land — and lock it up from being used for any productive use. Their ultimate goal is to gain rights to federal land — for the scale that represents,” explains SFOF. “To be clear: the goal is to take land and make it unusable for any economic purpose whatsoever.”
One of the biggest controversies surrounding the creation and listing of NACs is how they make money. Unlike regular companies that earn revenue by selling products and services, SFOF claims the only possible path to profitability for NACs is through “government subsidies.”
“The only profit generation concepts contemplated in the rule are provided as an aside, with examples being carbon credit sales and eco-tourism,” the infographic reads. “We believe that the creation of a new class of company to be publicly traded for investment that provides insufficient clarity on this point would be inappropriate.”
IEG and the NYSE were not immediately available for comment.
