Finance · Profile from Finance Research Companion
BlackRock
The world's largest asset manager. Larry Fink and seven partners founded it in 1988 as a bond-risk shop inside Blackstone, and it grew through three transforming acquisitions: Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (2006), Barclays Global Investors and its iShares ETF business (2009), and, in 2024–25, Global Infrastructure Partners, Preqin and HPS. It manages money for pension funds, insurers, sovereign funds and tens of millions of individual savers, rents its Aladdin risk platform to other financial firms, and was the US government's crisis manager of choice in 2008 and 2020. Its size, and Fink's annual letters urging companies to address climate risk, made it the main target of the American political backlash against ESG investing. By September 2026 it managed ~$15.5tn.
At a glance
- Founded
- 1988, New York, as Blackstone Financial Management, a unit of The Blackstone Group; renamed BlackRock in 1992; independent of Blackstone from 1994
- Founders
- Larry Fink, Robert Kapito, Susan Wagner, Barbara Novick, Ben Golub, Ralph Schlosstein, Hugh Frater and Keith Anderson (company history)
- Headquarters
- 50 Hudson Yards, New York
- Ownership / structure
- Public company (NYSE: BLK) since October 1999; widely held. Former anchor holders Merrill Lynch/Bank of America, Barclays and PNC sold their stakes between 2009 and 2020. A new holding company was created in October 2024 as part of the GIP deal (BlackRock, Inc. now files under a new SEC registrant)
- Leadership (2026)
- Larry Fink, chairman and CEO; Rob Kapito, president; Rob Goldstein, chief operating officer; Martin Small, CFO (verify current titles). Mark Wiedman, long seen as a leading successor, left in 2025 (reported)
- Segments / products
- iShares ETFs; index and active mutual funds and separate accounts; cash management; private markets (infrastructure via GIP, private credit via HPS, private equity, real estate); technology services (Aladdin, eFront, Preqin data)
- Scale
- AUM ~$14.04tn at December 31, 2025; ~$15.5tn at September 30, 2026, of which iShares ETFs ~$6.4tn (41%) (company)
- Revenue and profit
- 2025 revenue ~$24.2bn (+19%), record net inflows ~$698bn, net income ~$7.7bn, GAAP operating income ~$7.0bn and as-adjusted operating income ~$9.6bn (company, January 15, 2026). Q3 2026 revenue ~$7.75bn, net inflows ~$205bn, adjusted EPS ~$15.93 (company, October 14, 2026)
- Capital / regulatory status
- SEC-registered investment adviser and fund sponsor; not a bank holding company. The Financial Stability Oversight Council studied asset managers as potential systemic risks in 2014–16 but did not designate BlackRock
- Signature moves (incl. failures)
- Founding inside Blackstone and the split (1988–94); IPO and the Aladdin/BlackRock Solutions business (1999–2000); Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (2006); crisis mandates from the Fed and Treasury (2008, and again 2020); BGI and iShares (2009); the climate letters and ESG push (2018–21); the anti-ESG backlash, state boycotts and the Texas antitrust suit (2022–26); the iShares Bitcoin Trust (2024); GIP, Preqin and HPS (2024–25)
9 strategic moves analysed
Each one gets a full strategy file in the companion: context, the decision, the financing, what happened, and the lesson.
1988
Founding Inside Blackstone
Founding; later divestiture (split from Blackstone 1994, sale to PNC 1995)
1999
IPO and Aladdin Technology Business
IPO; launch (BlackRock Solutions, 2000)
2006
Merrill Lynch Investment Managers Merger
Merger (acquisition of Merrill Lynch's asset-management arm for stock)
2008
Crisis Mandates Maiden Lane and Government Advisory
Partnership (government mandates); advisory
2009
Barclays Global Investors and iShares
Acquisition
2020
Climate Letters and ESG Push
Pivot (investment-stewardship and product policy)
2022
ESG Backlash State Boycotts and Texas Suit
Controversy / litigation; strategic retreat (stewardship policy)
2024
GIP Preqin and HPS Private Markets Push
Acquisitions (three linked deals)
2024
iShares Bitcoin Trust
Launch (spot bitcoin exchange-traded product)