BlackRock
BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE: BLK) is the world's largest asset manager, managing over $11.5 trillion in assets on behalf of clients across 100 countries, including pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies, endowments, foundations, and individual investors. Founded in 1988 by Larry Fink and seven partners from Blackstone's fixed income division, BlackRock has grown from a fixed income risk management specialist into the most comprehensive investment management platform in the world, offering clients access to virtually every asset class, geography, and investment style through a combination of active management, index investing, and alternative investment strategies. According to its website at blackrock.com, BlackRock's purpose is to help more and more people experience financial well-being, and the firm pursues this mission by providing investment solutions, risk management capabilities, and technology that help its clients meet their financial goals.
BlackRock's investment platform, described at blackrock.com, is organized across active equity, active fixed income, multi-asset, index, and alternative investment strategies, with iShares — the world's leading provider of exchange-traded funds — representing a core pillar of the firm's index investing business. BlackRock Alternative Investors manages approximately $400 billion in alternative assets across private equity, private credit, real estate, infrastructure, hedge funds, and other alternative strategies, providing institutional and individual investors with access to the full spectrum of alternative investment opportunities through a single, trusted manager. The firm's Aladdin technology platform — which powers risk management and investment operations for BlackRock's own business as well as hundreds of external financial institutions — is one of the most important pieces of financial technology infrastructure in the world.
BlackRock's scale, technological capabilities, and comprehensive investment platform give it distinctive competitive advantages in both investment management and advisory relationships with institutional clients seeking a strategic partner for managing complex, multi-asset investment programs. According to blackrock.com, the firm's commitment to fiduciary responsibility, investment excellence, and corporate stewardship reflects its understanding that the trust of its clients — who have entrusted BlackRock with an extraordinary amount of the world's investment capital — represents the firm's most important asset. BlackRock's combination of unparalleled investment management scale, technological leadership through Aladdin, comprehensive multi-asset class capabilities, and global client relationships establishes it as the most influential and consequential asset management organization in the history of the investment management industry.