From passive to highly aggressive. BlackRock has built a dominant platform in the basic, low-cost ETFs and index funds that track public debt and equity markets. That success has been enough to create a company with a $150bn equity value and apparently a substantial war chest.
BlackRock on Tuesday said it would acquire the private credit manager HPS for $12bn to be paid in shares. Earlier this year, it acquired Global Infrastructure Partners for almost $13bn, mostly in BlackRock equity as well. It also spent $3bn in cash to buy the private markets data provider Preqin.
All this adds up to a BlackRock with more than $400bn in alternative assets under management. That figure is still dwarfed by the group’s overall assets under management of $11tn. But the acquisition spree is enough to make it suddenly one of the most relevant private capital managers in the world, if at a sharp cost to its current shareholders.