BlackRock (United States)

An American multinational investment firm with headquarters in New York City is called BlackRock, Inc. BlackRock, the largest asset manager in the world as of January 2022, was established in 1988 and initially served as a risk management and institutional fixed-income asset manager. BlackRock has clients in 100 countries and 70 offices spread across 30 different nations. BlackRock is regarded as one of the Big Three index fund managers that rule corporate America, together with Vanguard and State Street.

BlackRock has aimed to establish itself as a market leader in terms of corporate governance, social responsibility, and the environment (ESG). The business has been under fire for contributing to the acceleration of climate change, maintaining tight relations with the Federal Reserve System during the COVID-19 pandemic, engaging in anticompetitive conduct, and making unheard-of investments in China.

BlackRock makes investments on behalf of its clients, including those who own iShares ETF units, in a variety of publicly traded businesses, some of which are in direct competition with one another. BlackRock frequently appears among the largest shareholders of these corporations due to the size of its funds. Examples include the technology companies Apple (which BlackRock is listed as owning 6.34%) and Microsoft (6.77%), as well as the financial services companies Wells Fargo (4.30%) and JPMorgan Chase (4.41%). Despite acknowledging that these shares can be used to cast shareholder votes on behalf of these clients, often without the customer's consent, BlackRock maintains that these shares are ultimately owned by the company's clients, not by BlackRock.

Nevertheless, this ownership concentration has sparked worries about the potential anticompetitive activity. In a study published in 2014 titled "Anticompetitive Effects of Common Ownership," the impact of this kind of common ownership on airline ticket costs was examined. The study discovered that when competing airlines are more frequently owned by the same group of investors, prices increase and supply decreases. The authors point out that a price increase need not necessarily indicate intentional cooperation among the common owners; instead, it may just indicate that these businesses are no longer "too lazy to compete" with one another.

Founded: 1988

Revenue: US$19.17 billion (2021)

AUM: US$10.01 trillion (2021)

Website: https://www.blackrock.com/
Phone: 212-810-5300
Ranking: 3 of the 10 Top Asset Management Firms