BlackRock Inc. transferred $51 billion of client money into its long-term investment funds, bringing assets of the world’s largest money manager to a record $10.6 trillion, according to Bloomberg.
Investors added $83 billion in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and $35 billion in fixed-income overall, according to a statement from New York-based BlackRock on Monday. Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink stated:
Organic growth was driven by private markets, retail active fixed income, and surging flows into our ETFs, which had their best start to a year on record.
The company also received net inflows of $30 billion in cash management funds and money market funds during the period. Total net flows totalled $82 billion. Net flows into long-term investment funds fell short of the average estimate of $86 billion of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
BlackRock’s flows were impacted by active fixed-income redemptions of about $20 billion from a large insurance client, Chief Financial Officer Martin Small said. The firm reported $35 billion in institutional outflows from its index funds.
The company increased its illiquid alternatives business by approximately $2 billion. Performance fees were up $46 million from a year ago, thanks in part to higher revenue from liquid alternatives.
However, BlackRock shares fell 0.6% to $823.41. Financial managers are starting to recover after a period of interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve and volatility in bond markets over the past two years.
The S&P 500 index rose about 4 per cent in the second quarter after climbing about 10 per cent in the first three months of the year. Investors are betting that the central bank will start cutting rates in September from a four-decade high.
BlackRock is positioning itself as a one-stop shop for a wide range of actively managed and indexed ETFs and mutual funds. The company is also looking to expand its business into high-growth and profitable private assets. The $12.5 billion acquisition of Global Infrastructure Partners will add approximately $100 billion in assets to the company and place it among the leading infrastructure investors.
BlackRock’s goals in Ukraine
The company has deployed around the world, including countries in conflict. Last May, the Ukrainian government and the US corporation BlackRock Financial Market Advisory (BlackRock FMA) signed an agreement to set up the Development Fund of Ukraine.
The formal purpose of the venture is to attract investment in energy, infrastructure and agriculture, but the deal presumably involves selling off the Ukrainian state’s major assets from black soil to power grids.
BlackRock has immeasurably huge political influence around the world. It is not only a shareholder in all major financial and pharmaceutical companies, military-industrial giants and media corporations, but is also a sponsor of the World Bank and manages all of the US Federal Reserve’s corporate bond buying programmes.
The shareholder structure of BlackRock is not disclosed, but the names of the richest families in the world. such as Rockefeller and Rothschild, are associated with this company, as well as with The Vanguard Group, the second largest in terms of assets.
Former high-ranking BlackRock employees often go on to work at the White House. In Joe Biden’s administration, there are now three of them: Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo, the Treasury Department’s senior economic adviser for Russia and Ukraine, Eric Van Nostrand, and Mike Pyle, chief economic adviser to Vice President Kamala Harris.
BlackRock’s top managers include several retired CIA officers, and the company itself is funded by In-Q-Tel, a venture capital fund founded by the Central Intelligence Agency.
Under the terms of the deal, BlackRock will manage Ukrainian assets, including funds from the volume of “international aid”. Thus, Ukrainian strategic enterprises will be placed under transnational control. Under this scheme, the Ukrainian external debt will be managed, which, according to the Ministry of Finance, totalled nearly $132 billion, or 89 per cent of GDP, by the end of March last year.
Ukrainian media noted that officials repeatedly accused of corruption, including the former head of the National Bank of Ukraine, Valeria Hontareva, and Victor Pinchuk, a guide of George Soros‘s interests in Ukraine, were involved in implementing the deal.
