BlackRock, Inc. stands as a globally recognized investment management powerhouse, publicly owned and operating across a diverse range of financial markets. Its services are primarily targeted towards a broad spectrum of investors: from institutional, intermediary, and individual investors to a wider audience including pension plans, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, and public institutions. Its portfolio includes corporate bodies, banks, charities, foundations, and governments, showcasing a worldwide investment reach.
Beyond mere investment management, BlackRock also offers robust risk management and advisory services, adding another dimension to its comprehensive financial portfolio. It manages bespoke client portfolios focused on equity, fixed income, and balanced assets.
In the realm of investment vehicles, BlackRock exhibits an extensive array: it initiates and oversees open-end and closed-end mutual funds, offshore funds, unit trusts, as well as alternative investment vehicles such as structured funds. It is adept in launching a variety of mutual funds, including equity, fixed income, balanced, and real estate. Furthermore, it displays a strong foothold in exchange-traded funds, covering domains like equity, fixed income, balanced, currency, commodity, and multi-asset classes. Additionally, BlackRock also engages in the management of hedge funds.
When it comes to investment strategies, BlackRock has a strong presence across public equity, fixed income, real estate, currency, commodity, and alternative markets on a global scale. It diversifies its portfolio by investing in growth and value stocks of companies across different market capitalizations. The firm also pursues investment-grade municipal securities, government securities, corporate bonds, and asset-backed and mortgage-backed securities.
To ensure effective and efficient investments, BlackRock applies a combination of fundamental and quantitative analyses, using a balanced blend of bottom-up and top-down approaches. Its strategies also encompass liquidity, asset allocation, real estate, and alternative investment. In the real estate sector, it shows a particular interest in markets like Poland and Germany.
In terms of performance evaluation, BlackRock benchmarks its portfolios against well-established indices like S&P, Russell, Barclays, MSCI, Citigroup, and Merrill Lynch.
Founded in 1988 and headquartered in New York City, BlackRock extends its global footprint with additional offices in key cities worldwide such as Boston, London, Gurgaon, Hong Kong, Greenwich, Princeton, Edinburgh, Sydney, Taipei, Singapore, Sao Paulo, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Toronto, Wilmington, and San Francisco.
Company Overview
Segments and Products
BlackRock’s diverse platform of alpha-seeking active, index and cash management investment strategies across asset classes enables the Company to offer choice and tailor investment outcomes and asset allocation solutions for clients. Product offerings include single- and multiasset portfolios investing in equities, fixed income, alternatives and money market instruments. Products are offered directly and through intermediaries in a variety of vehicles, including open-end and closed-end mutual funds, iShares® and BlackRock exchange-traded funds (“ETFs”), separate accounts, collective trust funds and other pooled investment vehicles. BlackRock also offers technology services, including the investment and risk management technology platform, Aladdin®, Aladdin Wealth, eFront, and Cachematrix, as well as advisory services and solutions to a broad base of institutional and wealth management clients.
EFTs
BlackRock is the leading ETF provider in the world with $2.9 trillion of AUM at December 31, 2022, and generated net inflows of $220 billion in 2022. The majority of ETF AUM and net inflows represent the Company’s index-tracking iSharesbranded ETFs. The Company also offers a select number of active BlackRock-branded ETFs that seek outperformance and/or differentiated outcomes. Record fixed income ETF net inflows of $123 billion were diversified across exposures, led by flows into treasury, investment grade, and municipal ETFs. Equity ETF net inflows of $101 billion were driven by flows into core, sustainable and thematic ETFs, as well as continued client use of BlackRock’s broad-based precision exposure ETFs to express risk preferences and make tactical allocation changes during the year. Multi-asset ETFs saw net inflows of $1 billion, while alternative ETFs had net outflows of $5 billion, primarily driven by commodities funds. ETFs represented 37% of long-term AUM at December 31, 2022 and 42% of long-term base fees and securities lending revenue for 2022.
Equity
Year-end 2022 equity AUM totaled $4.4 trillion, reflecting net inflows of $105 billion. Net inflows included $101 billion and $7 billion into ETFs and non-ETF index, respectively, partially offset by active net outflows of $3 billion. BlackRock’s effective fee rates fluctuate due to changes in AUM mix. Approximately half of BlackRock’s equity AUM is tied to international markets, including emerging markets, which tend to have higher fee rates than US equity strategies. Accordingly, fluctuations in international equity markets, which may not consistently move in tandem with US markets, have a greater impact on BlackRock’s equity revenues and effective fee rate. Equity represented 56% of long-term AUM and 52% of long-term base fees and securities lending revenue for 2022.
Fixed Income
Fixed income AUM ended 2022 at $2.6 trillion, reflecting net inflows of $250 billion. Net inflows included $123 billion, $93 billion and $34 billion into ETFs, active and non-ETF index, respectively. Record fixed income ETF net inflows of $123 billion reflected the benefit of our diverse product offering and included strong flows into treasury, investment grade and municipal ETFs. Active fixed income net inflows included the funding of a significant insurance client outsourcing mandate. Fixed income represented 32% of long-term AUM and 26% of long-term base fees and securities lending revenue for 2022.
Multi-Asset
Multi-asset represented 9% of long-term AUM and 10% of long-term base fees and securities lending revenue for 2022.
Multi-asset net inflows reflected ongoing institutional demand for our solutions-based advice with $33 billion of net inflows coming from institutional clients. Defined contribution plans of clients remained a significant driver of flows and contributed $19 billion to institutional multiasset net inflows in 2022, primarily into target date and target risk product offerings. The Company’s multi-asset strategies include the following: • Target date and target risk products generated net inflows of $24 billion. Institutional investors represented 89% of target date and target risk AUM, with defined contribution plans representing 84% of AUM. Flows were driven by defined contribution investments in our LifePath offerings. LifePath products utilize a proprietary active asset allocation overlay model that seeks to balance risk and return over an investment horizon based on the investor’s expected retirement timing. Underlying investments are primarily index products. • Asset allocation and balanced products generated $6 billion of net inflows. These strategies combine equity, fixed income and alternative components for investors seeking a tailored solution relative to a specific benchmark and within a risk budget. In certain cases, these strategies seek to minimize downside risk through diversification, derivatives strategies and tactical asset allocation decisions. Flagship products include our Global Allocation and Multi-Asset Income fund families. • Fiduciary management services are complex mandates in which pension plan sponsors or endowments and foundations retain BlackRock to assume responsibility for some or all aspects of investment management, often with BlackRock acting as outsourced chief investment officer. These customized services require strong partnership with the clients’ investment staff and trustees in order to tailor investment strategies to meet client-specific risk budgets and return objectives
Team
The Global Executive Committee
Larry Fink - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Laurence D. Fink is one of the seven founders of BlackRock, and has been a large influence in its leadership since ints foundation in 1988. Prior to founding BlackRock he earned an MBA at the University of Los Angeles in 1976 and a BA from UCLA in 1974 and worked for The First Boston Corporation, an investment bank, being part of its management committee and a managing director. Additionally he is currently a member of a number of associations, including the Board of Trustees of New York University (NYU), the World Economic Forum, the board of the council of foreign relations, the advisory board of the Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management in Beijing and on the Executive Committee of the Partnership for New York City.
Rob Kapito - President
Rob Kapito is also one of the seven founders of BlackRock in 1988. Since 2007 he has been part of BlackRocks Global Executive Committee, Chairman of the Global Operating Committee and Director and President of BlackRock. Prior to founding BlackRock he achieved a bachelor in economics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1979 and an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1983. Furthermore he served as Vice President in the Mortgage Products Group at The First Boston Corporation before co-founding BlackRock. He is member of many associations, including being the President of the Board of Directors for the Hope & Heroes Children's Cancer Fund, recipient of the 2009 Joseph Wharton Leadership Award and the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation's 2010 Semper Fidelis Award.
Joud Abdel Majeid - Global Head of Investment Stewardship
Joud Abdel Majeid is Global Head of Investment Stewardship for BlackRock, a Senior Managing Director and a member of BlackRock's Global Executive Committee. Prior to joining BlackRock in 2017, Ms Abdel earned a bachelor's degree in finance and economics from Elmhurst College and an MBA from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern. Additionally she has previously worked as a management consultant at Booz & Company and Head of Strategy and Corporate Development at E*TRADE Financial.
Lance Braunstein - Head of Aladdin Engineering
Lance is Head of Aladdin Engineering, a member of the BlackRock Global Executive Committee and a senior managing Director for BlackRock. Before joining BlackRock Lance achieved a BA in mathematics at the University of Rochester, a MS in Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University and an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania. Previously he as worked as CIO at E*TRADE and CIO at OptionsHouse, which was acquired by E*TRADE in 2016. Additionally he has worked for a total of 19 years at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.
Susan Chan - Head of Greater China
Susan is Head of Greater China, Senior Managing Director, Deputy Head of Asia Pacific, Head of Trading, Liquidity and Lending Asia Pacific and a member of BlackRock's Global Executive Committee. She is responsible for BlackRocks investments, products and greater business in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Prior to working at BlackRock she graduated at Boston University and worked as Managing Director at Deutsche Bank AG, Hong Kong and as Managing Director at Barclays Capital Asia Limited where she held various leadership positions.
Samara Cohen - Chief Investment Officer of ETF and Index Investments
Samara is BlackRocks chief Investment Officer of ETF and Index Investments business, leading a team which seeks to lead in the modernisation of the index industry and ETF markets, including risk managers, platform architects, product operating model designers, platform architects and portfolio managers. Before joining BlackRock Samara earned a bachelors in Finance from Wharton School, a bachelors in Theatre Arts from the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She has previously worked as Chief Operating Officer of Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities Americas Sales and the led the Global Market Transition team. She has also worked at Goldman Sachs.
Stephen Cohen - Head of Europe, Middle East and Africa
Stephen is Head of Europe, Middle East and Africa, chairs the EMEA Executive Committee and is member of the BlackRock's Global Executive Committee. Prior Stephen earned a First Class honours degree in Economics from the University of Southampton in 1996. Before joining BlackRock in 2011, he was Global Head of Equity Linked Strategy at Nomura, and has also worked at ING Barings. Stephen started his career working in fixed income at the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) in 1996.
Edwin Conway - Global Head of Equity Private Markets
Edwin N. Conway was been named Global Head of EPM in 2023, is Senior Managing Director and a member of BlackRocks Global Executive Committee. He is responsible for direct private equity, infrastructure, real estate and secondaries. Prior to joining BlackRock Edwin earned a bachelors from the University College Dublin, worked as Executive Director at Arden Asset Management, Inc., Director at Credit Suisse Asset Management and Senior Managing Director at The Blackstone Group.
Edward Fishwick - Chief Risk Officer and Head of the Risk and Quantitative Analysis
Edward J. Fishwick is responsible for BlackRock's investment and enterprise risk. He is Chief Risk officer, chair of BlackRock's Enterprise Risk Management Committee and a member of the Global Executive Committee. Prior, Ed earned a BA in Economics from the University of Liverpool and studied postgraduate economics at the University of Cambridge. He has worked in a variety of positions, including Head of Risk Management and Investment Process Research at AXA Investment Managers, Head of Research at Franklin Portfolio Managers in Boston and Merrill Lynch Investment Management prior to it getting acquired by BlackRock in 2006.
Robert Goldstein - Chief Operating Officer
Mr. Goldstein is BlackRock's Chief Operating Officer, a Senior Managing Director, co-chair of the Global Operating Committee and a member of the Global Executive Committee. He has worked at BlackRock for more than 20 years, starting as analyst in BlackRock's Portfolio Analytics Group in 1994, and being instrumental in developing BlackRock's processes and capabilities. Previously he earned a bachelors degree in economics from the Binghamton University in 1994. He has twice been named to Fortune's "40 under 40" list.