History of appearance and peculiarities of BlackRock activity
BlackRock is the world’s largest investment company trusted by international corporations to manage assets. It also owns a credit rating, which is compiled for countries. BlackRock employs about 9 thousand people, who operate with assets worth about 4.5 trillion dollars.
The company was founded by businessmen Robert Capito and Lawrence Fink in 1988. BlackRock is represented in 100 countries, and one of the shareholders is the Bank of America. In addition, the companies attribute a close relationship with the U.S. Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank. BlackRock owns shares of well-known corporations – Adidas, Siemens and BMW.
The company was founded as an investment division of Blackstone. Initially it was involved in securities management, but after the acquisition of iShares, which was owned by Barclays, BlackRock had a new round of development. The company became in demand when the financial crisis hit the market. That’s when it started providing advisory services to government organizations and central banks. But not everyone liked it. A private firm that is an adviser to government agencies is always a conflict of interest. Exchange-traded investment funds are a threat. In times of crisis, they can influence the situation by exacerbating the processes. However, BlackRock has managed to avoid all accusations, mainly due to its influential shareholders.
BlackRock became an independent company in 1992, the reason for separation from Blackstone according to the official version were business disputes. After that a new chapter in the development of the company began. In 1994, the services of specialists BlackRock resorted to General Electric Corporation, which wanted to prepare for the sale of mortgage securities of the scandalous bank Kidder Peabody. The company coped with this job perfectly, and since then, the company has not had any large customers.
Pittsburgh PNC Bank bought back the company that was owned by Blackstone. After the company was listed on the stock exchange in 1999, PNC became a major shareholder. Three years later, the capital of BlackRock increased almost twice, thanks to which it took 5th place in the rating of investment companies represented on the stock exchange.
The main activity of the company for a long time remained bonds, and even the collapse of dotcoms did not reduce the position of BlackRock.
The company is actively operating in Europe. In 2010 it was engaged in analysis of financial institutions in Ireland, in 2011 it made recommendations to improve the functioning of Greek banks. BlackRock decided how much money the EU should allocate to support the country’s banking system.
Now the investment company is a reputable organization worldwide and manages the assets of giants in the market.
