BlackRock, Inc.

BlackRock, Inc. is an American multi-national investment company based in New York City. Founded in 1988, initially as a risk management and fixed income institutional asset manager, BlackRock is the world's largest asset manager, with trillion in assets under management as of January 2022. BlackRock operates globally with 70 offices in 30 countries, and clients in 100 countries. Along with Vanguard and State Street, BlackRock is considered to be one of the Big Three index fund managers that dominate corporate America.

BlackRock has sought to position itself as an industry leader in environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG). The company has faced criticism for worsening climate change, its close ties with the Federal Reserve System during the COVID-19 pandemic, anticompetitive behavior, and its unprecedented investments in China.

History

1988–1997

BlackRock was founded in 1988 by Larry Fink, Robert S. Kapito, Susan Wagner, Barbara Novick, Ben Golub, Hugh Frater, Ralph Schlosstein, and Keith Anderson to provide institutional clients with asset management services from a risk management perspective. Fink, Kapito, Golub and Novick had worked together at First Boston, where Fink and his team were pioneers in the mortgage-backed securities market in the United States. During Fink's tenure, he had lost $100 million as head of First Boston. That experience was the motivation to develop what he and the others considered to be excellent risk management and fiduciary practices. Initially, Fink sought funding (for initial operating capital) from Pete Peterson of The Blackstone Group who believed in Fink's vision of a firm devoted to risk management. Peterson called it Blackstone Financial Management. In exchange for a 50 percent stake in the bond business, initially Blackstone gave Fink and his team a $5 million credit line. Within months, the business had turned profitable, and by 1989 the group's assets had quadrupled to $2.7 billion. The percent of the stake owned by Blackstone also fell to 40%, compared to Fink's staff.

By 1992, Blackstone had a stake equating to about 35% of the company, and Stephen A. Schwarzman and Fink were considering selling shares to the public. The firm adopted the name BlackRock, and was managing $17 billion in assets by the end of the year. At the end of 1994, BlackRock was managing $53 billion. In 1994, Schwarzman and Fink had an internal dispute over methods of compensation and equity. Fink wanted to share equity with new hires, to lure talent from banks, unlike Schwarzman, who did not want to further lower Blackstone's stake. They agreed to part ways, and Schwarzman sold BlackRock, a decision he later called a "heroic mistake." In June 1994, Blackstone sold a mortgage-securities unit with $23 billion in assets to PNC Bank Corp. for $240 million. The unit had traded mortgages and other fixed-income assets, and during the sales process the unit changed its name from Blackstone Financial Management to BlackRock Financial Management. Schwarzman remained with Blackstone, while Fink went on to become chairman and CEO of BlackRock Inc.

1999–2009

BlackRock went public in 1999 at $14 a share on the New York Stock Exchange. By the end of 1999, BlackRock was managing $165 billion in assets. BlackRock grew both organically and by acquisition. In August 2004, BlackRock made its first major acquisition, buying State Street Research & Management's holding company SSRM Holdings, Inc. from MetLife for $325 million in cash and $50 million in stock. The acquisition raised BlackRock's assets under management from $314 billion to $325 billion. The deal included the mutual-fund business State Street Research & Management in 2005. BlackRock merged with Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (MLIM) in 2006, halving PNC's ownership and giving Merrill Lynch a 49.5% stake in the company. In October 2007, BlackRock acquired the fund-of-funds business of Quellos Capital Management. BlackRock, Inc.

The U.S. government contracted with BlackRock to help resolve the fallout of the financial meltdown of 2008. According to '' Vanity Fair'', the financial establishment in Washington and on Wall Street believed BlackRock was the best choice for the job.Andrews, Suzanna.
Larry Fink's $12 Trillion Shadow
''Vanity Fair'', April 2010: "There is little doubt among the financial establishment in Washington and on Wall Street that BlackRock was the best choice to handle the government's problems." The Federal Reserve allowed BlackRock to superintend the $130 billion-debt settlement of Bear Stearns and American International Group.

In 2009, BlackRock first became the No. 1 asset manager worldwide. In April 2009, BlackRock acquired R3 Capital Management, LLC and took control of the $1.5 billion fund. On 12 June 2009, Barclays sold its Global Investors unit (BGI), which included its exchange traded fund business, iShares, to BlackRock for US$13.5 billion. Through the deal, Barclays attained a near-20% stake in BlackRock.

2010–2019

In 2010, Ralph Schlosstein, the CEO of Evercore Partners and a BlackRock founder, called BlackRock "the most influential financial institution in the world." On 1 April 2011, due to Sanofi's acquisition of Genzyme, BlackRock replaced it on the S&P 500 index. Retrieved January 23, 2012.

In 2013, ''Fortune'' listed BlackRock on its annual list of the world's 50 Most Admired Companies. In 2014, ''The Economist'' said that BlackRock's $4 trillion under management made it the "world's biggest asset manager", and it was larger than the world's largest bank, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, with $3 trillion. In May of the same year, BlackRock invested in Snapdeal.

In December 2014 a BlackRock managing director in London was banned by the British Financial Conduct Authority for failing the "fit and proper" test, because he paid £43,000 to avoid prosecution for dodging train fares. In response to the incident, BlackRock said, "Jonathan Burrows left BlackRock earlier this year. What he admitted to the FCA is totally contrary to our values and principles."

At the end of 2014, the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute reported that 65% of Blackrock's assets under management were made up of institutional investors.

By June 30, 2015, BlackRock had US$4.721 trillion of assets under management. On August 26, 2015, BlackRock entered into a definitive agreement to acquire FutureAdvisor, a digital wealth management provider with reported assets under management of $600 million. Under the deal, FutureAdvisor would operate as a business within BlackRock Solutions (BRS). BlackRock announced in November 2015 that they would wind down the BlackRock Global Ascent hedge fund after losses. The Global Ascent fund had been its only dedicated global macro fund, as BlackRock was "better known for its mutual funds and exchange traded funds." At the time, BlackRock managed $51 billion in hedge funds, with $20 billion of that in funds of hedge funds.

In March 2017, the ''Financial Times'' announced that BlackRock, after a six-month review led by Mark Wiseman, had initiated a restructuring of its $8bn actively-managed fund business, resulting in the departure of seven portfolio managers and a $25m charge in Q2, replacing certain funds with quantitative investment strategies. In May 2017, BlackRock increased its stake in both CRH plc and Bank of Ireland. By April 2017, iShares business accounted for $1.41tn, or 26 percent, of BlackRock's total assets under management, and 37 percent of BlackRock's base fee income. In April 2017, BlackRock backed the inclusion of mainland Chinese shares in MSCI's global index for the first time.

Between October and December 2018, BlackRock's assets dropped by US$468bn and fell below $6tn. It was the largest decline between quarters since September 2011.

As of 2019, BlackRock holds 4.81% of Deutsche Bank, making it the single largest shareholder. This investment goes back to at least 2016.

In May 2019, BlackRock received criticism for the environmental impact of its holdings. It is counted among the top three shareholders in every oil "supermajor" except Total, and it is among the top 10 shareholders in 7 of the 10 biggest coal producers.

Since 2020

In his 2020 annual open letter, Fink announced environmental sustainability as a core goal for BlackRock's future investment decisions. BlackRock disclosed plans to sell US$500 million in coal investments.

In March 2020, the Federal Reserve chose BlackRock to manage two corporate bond-buying programs in response to the coronavirus pandemic, the $500 billion Primary Market Corporate Credit Facility (PMCCF) and the Secondary Market Corporate Credit Facility (SMCCF), as well as purchase by the Federal Reserve System of commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) guaranteed by Government National Mortgage Association, Federal National Mortgage Association, or Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation

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