Company: ASB
Filing Date: 2025-02-12
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000007789-25-000013
Chunk: 181

Company: ASSOCIATED BANC-CORP
Filing Date: 2025-02-12
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 181
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 operations, and financial condition.

Failure to appropriately administer or manage our investment management and asset servicing businesses properly could put the related earnings at risk.

Revenues from our investment management and asset servicing businesses are significant to our earnings. Generating returns that satisfy clients in a variety of asset classes is important to maintaining existing business and attracting new business. Administering or managing assets in accordance with the terms of governing documents and applicable laws is also important to client satisfaction. Failure in either of the foregoing areas can expose us to liability, and result in a decrease in our revenues and earnings.

Climate change and related legislative and regulatory initiatives may result in operational changes and expenditures that could significantly impact our business.

The current and anticipated effects of climate change are creating an increasing level of concern for the state of the global environment. As a result, political and social attention to the issue of climate change has increased. Various policymakers have adopted, or are considering adopting, requirements for companies to undertake various actions, such as disclosures, regarding climate and other environmental and social matters. For example, California has adopted laws requiring in-scope companies to provide certain climate-related information, including GHG emissions and climate-related financial risks and related management strategies, and similar laws are being considered in other states. Such requirements are not uniform and may be unevenly interpreted or applied (including the potential for novel interpretations of existing laws), which may increase the cost and complexity of compliance and any related risks. Simultaneously, some policymakers have adopted, or are considering adopting, requirements to constrain consideration of various environmental and social matters by financial institutions and other companies. Expectations on such matters continue to evolve quickly, including in some instances due to company size, sector, or otherwise. 

As the Corporation continues to grow and expand the scope of our operations, our regulators generally will expect us to enhance our internal control programs and processes, including with respect to risk management and stress testing under a variety of adverse scenarios and related capital planning. This would typically be expected to result in increased compliance costs and other compliance-related risks.

The new Trump Administration has publicly discussed rolling back federal initiatives to address climate change, and has already taken several such actions by executive order. These activities increase the likelihood that certain individual states will address climate change risks. For example, in October 2023, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed two climate-related disclosure bills into law. The Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act (referred to as SB 253) requires both public and private U.S. businesses with revenues greater than $1 billion doing business in California to report