Overview

BlackRock, Inc. is an American multinational investment company. Founded in 1988, initially as an enterprise risk management and fixed income institutional asset manager, BlackRock is the largest asset manager worldwide, with $15.3 trillion in assets under management as of 2026. Headquartered in New York City, BlackRock has 70 offices in 30 countries and clients in 100 countries.

BlackRock is the manager of the iShares group of exchange-traded funds, and along with Fidelity, Vanguard, and State Street, it is considered one of the Big Three index fund managers. Its Aladdin software keeps track of investment portfolios for many major financial institutions and its BlackRock Solutions division provides financial risk management services. BlackRock is ranked 210th on the Fortune 500.

1988–1999

BlackRock was founded in 1988 by Larry Fink, Robert S. Kapito, Susan Wagner, Barbara Novick, Bennett Golub, Hugh Frater, Ralph Schlosstein, and Keith Anderson to provide institutional clients with asset management services from a risk-management perspective. Fink, Kapito, Golub, and Novick had worked together at First Boston, where Fink and his team were pioneers in the mortgage-backed securities market in the United States. During Fink's tenure, he had lost $90 million as co-head of First Boston’s Fixed Income Division.

That experience was the motivation to develop what he and the others considered excellent risk management and fiduciary practices. Initially, Fink sought funding (for initial operating capital) from Peter Peterson of The Blackstone Group, who believed in Fink's vision of a firm devoted to risk management. Peterson called it Blackstone Financial Management. In exchange for a 50% stake in the bond business, Blackstone initially gave Fink and his team a $5 million credit line. Within months, the business had turned profitable, and by 1989 the group's assets had quadrupled to $2.7 billion.

The proportion of the stake Blackstone owned also fell to 40%, compared to Fink's staff.

By 1992, Blackstone had a stake of about 36% in the company, and Stephen A. Schwarzman and Fink were considering selling shares to the public. The firm adopted the name BlackRock, and was managing $17 billion in assets by the end of the year. At the end of 1994, BlackRock was managing $53 billion. In 1994, Schwarzman and Fink had an internal dispute over methods of compensation and equity. Fink wanted to share equity with new hires, to lure talent from banks, but Schwarzman did not want to further lower Blackstone's stake.

They agreed to part ways, and Schwarzman sold BlackRock, a decision he later called a "heroic mistake".

In June 1994, Blackstone sold a mortgage-securities unit with $23 billion in assets to PNC Financial Services for $240 million. The unit had traded mortgages and other fixed-income assets, and during the sales process it changed its name from Blackstone Financial Management to BlackRock Financial Management. Schwarzman remained with Blackstone, while Fink became chairman and CEO of BlackRock.

1999–2009

On October 1, 1999, BlackRock became a public company, selling shares at $14 each via an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange. By the end of 1999, BlackRock was managing $165 billion in assets. BlackRock grew both organically and by acquisition. In 2000, the firm launched BlackRock Solutions to provide risk management and investment analytics to institutional investors and other large investment managers. The platform includes advisory services and technology, being based on BlackRock's Aladdin System, an acronym for Asset Liability and Debt and Derivative Investment Network.

In August 2004, BlackRock made its first major acquisition, buying State Street Research & Management's holding company SSRM Holdings, Inc. from MetLife for $325 million in cash and $50 million in stock. The acquisition increased BlackRock's assets under management from $314 billion to $325 billion. The deal included the mutual-fund business State Street Research & Management in 2005.

BlackRock merged with Merrill's Investment Managers division (MLIM) in 2006, halving PNC's ownership and giving Merrill a 49.5% stake in the company. In October 2007, BlackRock acquired the fund-of-funds business of Quellos Capital Management. In April 2009, BlackRock acquired R3 Capital Management, LLC and management of its $1.5 billion fund. In May 2009, BlackRock Solutions was retained by the U.S.

Treasury Department to analyze, unwind, and price the toxic assets that were owned by Bear Stearns, American International Group, Freddie Mac, Morgan Stanley, and other financial firms that were affected in the 2008 financial crisis. The Federal Reserve allowed BlackRock to superintend the $130 billion-debt settlement of Bear Stearns and American International Group.

2010–2019

In February 2010, to raise capital needed due to the 2008 financial crisis, Barclays sold its Barclays Global Investors (BGI) unit, which included its exchange traded fund business, iShares, to BlackRock for US$13.5 billion and Barclays acquired a near-20% stake in BlackRock. On April 1, 2011, BlackRock was added as a component of the S&P 500 stock market index. In 2013, Fortune listed BlackRock on its annual list of the world's 50 Most Admired Companies. In 2014, BlackRock's $4 trillion under management made it the "world's biggest asset manager".

At the end of 2014, the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute reported that 65% of Blackrock's assets under management were made up of institutional investors.

By June 30, 2015, BlackRock had US$4.721 trillion of assets under management. On August 26, 2015, BlackRock entered into a definitive agreement to acquire FutureAdvisor, a digital wealth management provider with reported assets under management of $600 million. Under the deal, FutureAdvisor would operate as a business within BlackRock Solutions (BRS). BlackRock announced in November 2015 that they would wind down the BlackRock Global Ascent hedge fund after losses.

The Global Ascent fund had been its only dedicated global macro fund, as BlackRock was "better known for its mutual funds and exchange traded funds". At the time, BlackRock managed $51 billion in hedge funds, with $20 billion of that in funds of hedge funds.

In March 2017, BlackRock, after a six-month review led by Mark Wiseman, initiated a restructuring of its $8 billion actively managed fund business, resulting in the departure of seven portfolio managers and a $25 million charge in the second quarter, replacing certain funds with quantitative investment strategies. By April 2017, iShares business accounted for $1.41 trillion, or 26%, of BlackRock's total assets under management, and 37% of BlackRock's base fee income. Also in April 2017, BlackRock backed the inclusion of mainland Chinese shares in MSCI's global index for the first time.

2020–present

In January 2020, PNC Financial Services sold its stake in BlackRock for $14.4 billion. In March 2020, the Federal Reserve chose BlackRock to manage two corporate bond-buying programs in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This also included the $500 billion Primary Market Corporate Credit Facility (PMCCF) and the Secondary Market Corporate Credit Facility (SMCCF), as well as purchase by the Federal Reserve of commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) guaranteed by Government National Mortgage Association, Fannie Mae, or Freddie Mac.

In August 2020, BlackRock received approval from the China Securities Regulatory Commission to set up a mutual fund business in the country. This made BlackRock the first global asset manager to get consent from the Chinese government to start operations in the country.

In October 2021 BlackRock launched its Voting Choice program, enabling institutional clients invested in index funds to participate in shareholder voting. Eligible clients can vote all issues, vote only on some issues, select from 14 different voting policies, or allow BlackRock's investment stewardship team to vote for them. BlackRock Investment Stewardship is a team of approximately 70 analysts who engage with the boards and management teams of companies, and vote shares, on the behalf of non-voting clients.

In May 2021, BlackRock announced that it has acted as the majority debt provider on heylo housing's £362.5 million acquisition of a portfolio of 3,000 shared-ownership homes through its Home Reach scheme.