International company BlackRock is one of the largest investment companies in the world and the largest in terms of assets under management.
As of 2021, the amount of assets under management at BlackRock reached $9 trillion (BlackRock Investor Day 2021).
Let's run through the pages of history of the financial world's most powerful and young whale. Yes, paradoxically, BlackRock is the youngest investment company.
BlackRock was founded by Larry Fink in 1988, while, for example, State Street Corporation was founded in 1792, Vanguard Group in 1975,
and Fidelity Investments in 1946.
Despite the fact that there were eight founders of BlackRock, the success of the company is attributed to Larry Fink. At first, BlackRock
was part of the Blackstone Group and was located in a small office in an investment group building. The year 1999 is a significant year for the company, this is connected with the fact that this year the company begins to sell its patented Aladdin technology and conducts initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange, the company's assets under management increased to 165 billion dollars. For comparison, the amount of assets under management in 1992 was 17 billion dollars, and in 1995 - 52 billion dollars (this year BlackRock was sold to another investment group - PNC Financial Services).
So, after Blackrock incorporated and went public, 14% of the stock was listed, partners and Larry Fink got 16% and 70% was retained by PNC Financial Services. The company grew exponentially. BlackRock's success was ensured by a risk assessment system, including five thousand computers and a huge team of analysts, engineers and mathematicians. In 2000 the company founded BlackRock Solutions, which is also a significant event, because since that year BlackRock became a technology provider, and the basis of this business is Aladdin. Aladdin is the abbreviation of the platform (Asset Liability and Debt and Derivatives Investment Network),
which performs risk assessment, testing of various assets, in addition, can predict the behavior of assets in a given situation, with different
variants of events (www.blackrock.com).
The amount of assets under management at BlackRock reached $342 billion by the end of 2004 and that was not the limit. BlackRock continued to actively develop, developing tenologies and acquiring companies. In particular, in 2005, SSRM Holdings, an asset management division, was acquired; the next step was the merger with Merrill Lynch Investment Managers, and in 2009, BlackRock bought Barclays Global Investors (BGI). Acquisition of BGI makes BlackRock the world's largest asset manager, thanks to this transaction was completed alpha- and index strategies, which allowed to provide its customers with an excellent range of solutions.
Today the company manages its clients' assets in North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and the Middle East. BlackRock has 70 offices located in 30 countries. The company continues to grow and develop, with many calling the company's growth outstanding. As noted in BlackRock Investor Day 2021, the company expects to reach $15 trillion in industry ETF assets by 2025 (BlackRock Investor Day 2021).
Giants of the Financial World: Part 2 – BlackRock
