BlackRock Inc

Type Public (NYSE: BLK)

Industry Investment management

Founded 1988

Headquarters New York, USA

Key people Laurence D. Fink, CEO

Products Asset management

Revenue  US$4.74 Billion (FY 2009)[1]

Net income  US$879 Million (FY 2009)[1]

Total assets  US$178 Billion (FY 2009)[2]

Total equity  US$24.3 Billion (FY 2009)[2]

Employees 8,629 (2009)

Website www.blackrock.com

BlackRock is a global investment management firm based in New York City.

Contents
 [hide]

1 Rundown

2 History

3 Barclays Global
Investors

4 Key people

5 Notes

6 References

7 External links

[edit]Rundown

The company acquired Barclays Global Investors in December 2009 under the BlackRock name,
making it the largest money manager in the world.[3] The deal had been approved by Barclays
shareholders and announced on June 11, 2009.[4] As of September 30, 2010, BlackRock’s assets under
management total US$3.446 trillion across equity, fixed income, cash management, alternative
investment, real estate and advisory strategies. Through BlackRock Solutions — BlackRock offers risk
management, strategic advisory and enterprise investment system services to a broad base of clients
with portfolios totaling approximately US$9 trillion.[5] BlackRock is publicly-traded, with Bank of
America, PNC Financial Services, and Barclays PLC holding 34.1%, 24.6%, and 19.9% respectively, with
the remainder owned by institutional and individual investors, as well as BlackRock employees.[5]

[edit]History

New York Headquarters

BlackRock was founded as BlackStone Financial Management within the private equity firmBlackstone
Group in 1988. Larry Fink, BlackRock’s founder and CEO, had joined Blackstone in 1988 as a partner,
along with Ralph Schlosstein, former White House aide under the Carter administration, and Robert
Kapito and Sue Wagner. Before joining Blackstone, Fink was a managing director at First Boston, where
he pioneered the mortgage-backed securities market in the United States. In 1992 Fink, Schlosstein and
Co separated from the Blackstone Group under the name BlackRock and aggressively re-invented it as
an independent asset-management company. In 1995, PNC Financial Services Group purchased
BlackRock and in 1999, assets under management had grown to $165 billion and the firm decided to go
public.

Much of BlackRock's recent growth has been through its acquisitions. On January 28, 2005, BlackRock
purchased State Street Research Management, a mutual-fund business that had previously been owned
by MetLife. This acquisition added a sizable equity business to BlackRock's funds, which had previously
comprised mostly fixed-income securities. On September 29, 2006, BlackRock completed its merger
with Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (MLIM), halving PNC's ownership and giving Merrill Lynch a
49.5-percent stake in the company. On October 1, 2007, BlackRock acquired the fund-of-funds business
of Quellos Capital Management.[6] On April 30, 2009, BlackRock hired 43 employees from R3 Capital
Management, LLC and took control of the $1.5 billion fund.

Headquartered in New York, BlackRock serves clients from offices in 24 countries, maintaining a major
presence in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and the Middle East. With approximately 8,400
employees, including more than 700 investment professionals worldwide.

BlackRock Financial Management Inc. has been retained by the New York Fed to manage and eventually
liquidate the assets held in a newly formed Delaware limited liability company (LLC) to fund the purchase
of residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) from the securities lending portfolio of several
regulated U.S. insurance subsidiaries of AIG.[7]

In December 2009 the company acquired Barclays Global Investors (BGI), giving it control of
the iShares system. The division formerly branded BGI is headquartered in San Francisco[8], and also has
research and portfolio management teams in London, Sydney, Tokyo,Toronto and other cities, as well as
client service offices in several additional major financial centres in Europe, North America and Asia [9].

[edit]Barclays Global Investors

 Barclays Global Investors: San Francisco Office

BGI began as units of Wells Fargo Nikko and Barclays Bank which merged in 1996. In the 1970s Wells
Fargo invented the first passive index investing strategy for majorinstitutional investors under the
leadership of Frederick L. A. Grauer. Later, it went on to help pioneer the exchange-traded fund business
(through its iShares brand), which is a security that can be traded at any time, and whose value is based
on the value of a basket of stocks, bonds or commodities. ETFs can give tax advantages and intraday
trading mechanical benefits that other products such as mutual funds do not. Since the economics of
indexed fund management are heavily influenced by economies of scale, Barclays grew to be the largest
asset managing company in the world.

Since 2000, BGI's active fund management business grew significantly, to the point where it accounted
for approximately 50% of the firm's revenue in 2006. However, like other actively managed hedge funds,
it was badly affected in the quant fund meltdown in 2008. The passively managed iShares arm, in
contrast, performed extremely well, accounting for about 45% of the revenue of the firm in 2008. At the
end of 2008, the iShares division, with more than $290 billion in assets, accounted for about half the U.S.
ETF industry. BlackRock's global Exchange Traded Funds assets hit an all time high of $1tln ($1,032bln)
at the end of December 2009, 45.2% above the $710.9bln at the end of 2008[10].

In April 2009, Barclays had proposed selling its iShares arm to CVC Capital Partners, a private equity firm
that had agreed to pay more than $4 billion. However, under a 45-day "go shop" clause, a later bid by
BlackRock was announced on June 11, 2009[11] for the whole of BGI, in a mixed cash-stock deal worth
around $13.5 billion (37.8 million shares of common stock and $6.6 billion in cash)[12]