BlackRock Inc. is an American multinational investment management corporation and the world's largest asset manager.Headquartered in New York City, BlackRock is a leading provider of investment, advisory, and risk management solutions. The company acquired Barclays Global Investors in December 2009, solidifying its position as the largest investment manager in the world.As of June 2011, the company has over $3.65 trillion in assets under management. The name is officially spelled in CamelCase.Founded in 1988, initially offering fixed income products, BlackRock has become a financial powerhouse while remaining out of the public eye. According to Ralph Schlosstein, CEO of Evercore Partners, a NY-based investment bank: “BlackRock today is one of, if not the, most influential financial institutions in the world.BlackRock serves clients in 60 countries, maintaining a major presence in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and the Middle East. It has offices in San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas, Princeton, Wilmington, London, Zurich, Paris, Frankfurt, São Paulo, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Taipei, Beijing, Sydney, Dubai, and various other cities.BlackRock has approximately 10,100 employees, including more than 700 investment professionals worldwide.In 1988, Laurence Fink (or as he is called, Larry Fink) and Robert S. Kapito left First Boston to found a company that would provide clients with asset management services from a risk management perspective. Initially, BlackRock was under the umbrella of The Blackstone Group and called Blackstone Financial Management.Larry Fink joined Blackstone in 1988 as a partner, along with Ralph Schlosstein, former White House aide in the Carter administration, Robert S. Kapito, Bennett Golub, Barbara Novick, Susan Wagner, Keith Anderson and Hugh Frater. Before joining Blackstone, Fink, Kapito, Golub, and Novick worked together at First Boston. As Managing Director at First Boston, Fink and his team pioneered the mortgage-backed securities market in the United States. Larry Fink holds an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.The original founders of BlackRock were Laurence Fink, Ralph Schlosstein, Robert S. Kapito, Susan Wagner, Bennett Golub, Barbara Novick, Keith Anderson, and Hugh Frater. Blackstone Financial Management wound up changing its name to BlackRock Financial Management a few years later to reduce potential confusion with other Blackstone Group affiliates as well as to reduce the need for certain corporate governance restrictions that had been placed on it by The Blackstone Group.In 1992, Steve Schwarzman thought BlackRock had peaked at $100 billion in assets under management. He wanted to cash out.The BlackRock team spun out of Blackstone and became an independent financial services firm. Larry Fink cut a deal with the PNC Financial Services Group when they purchased 70% of BlackRock. Subsequently, PNC contributed a number of its other asset management subsidiaries into BlackRock which then consolidated the various entities into an integrated asset management firm. In 1999, with $165 billion in assets under management, the firm went public although PNC remained its dominant shareholder.BlackRock grew organically, through lift-outs and their first acquisition was on January 28, 2005 when they 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. 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. On April 30, 2009, BlackRock hired 43 employees from R3 Capital Management, LLC and took control of the $1.5 billion fund.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. BlackRock fund is currently the largest shareholder of Apple Inc., owning 5.5%, valued at more than $15 billion.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, 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.After the close of trading, on Friday, April 1, 2011 BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) replaced Genzyme (NASDAQ:GENZ) on the S&P 500 index.
Net income $ 2.337 billion (2011)
Aum $ 3.513 trillion (2011)