Rise In Assets, Net Income At BlackRock; iShares Made Biggest Leap

Max Skjönsberg

19 April 2012

BlackRock, the asset management titan, has reported net income of $572 million for the opening three months of the year, up $17 million on the previous quarter and $4 million on the first quarter last year.

The firm’s assets under management rose by 5 per cent in the three months to 31 March, from $3.5 trillion to $3.7 trillion. Compared with a year ago when the New York-headquartered investment manager had $3.6 trillion in client assets, the figure is a smaller improvement.

Retail long-term assets increased by 7 per cent to $387.5 billion, which the firm attributed to strong inflows of $1.3 billion from retail and high net worth clients in the Americas.

iShares, BlackRock’s ETF business, grew its client assets by 13 per cent to $671.7 billion, driven by net inflows of $18.2 billion, up 74 per cent from the same period last year. The firm said that the acquisition of the Canadian ETP firm Claymore Investments in March accounted for $7.3 billion of AuM, largely in equity and fixed income.

Across BlackRock, equity assets - which account for nearly half of the company’s total AuM - grew by 12 per cent, while cash management AuM dropped by 5 per cent and advisory client AuM declined by 19 per cent.

In a quarter where many US financial institutions have reported slight falls in net income, chief executive Laurence Fink was pleased with the results, dubbing them “a strong testament to the power of BlackRock’s diversified business model and history of innovation”.

Among its recent innovations, Fink highlighted the Investing for a New World campaign, launched in February, in which the asset manager is looking to educate people and companies about the importance of investment and the cost of sitting on cash.