One BlackRock

BlackRock black book

On the first day after the MLIM deal was closed in 2006, a copy of this book was distributed to all employees to help them navigate the firm.

One-year anniversary letter to employees

This is the letter that Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink sent to all employees on the one-year anniversary of the Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (MLIM) merger. Larry’s message focused on BlackRock’s achievements on behalf of its clients over the year. A primary goal of the MLIM merger was to enhance relationships with clients – and not just for the sake of being the biggest in the industry. Larry’s letter highlighted BlackRock’s collective accomplishments as one firm, the prevailing market challenges, and the firm’s focus and goals for the future.

BlackRock passport

This passport style book was included in a box of Blackrock branded items that was delivered to all employees in October of 2006. Each page described the multiple ways employees could become a BlackRock citizen. Themes included working as a team, sharing information, being creative, innovative, curious, and confident, and working as a trusted partner.

$1 Trillion deal cartoon

The original version of this cartoon, which hangs in Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink’s conference room, depicts the large number of deals that BlackRock walked away from prior to moving forward with the Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (MLIM) deal. BlackRock’s 2006 purchase of MLIM greatly expanded its global reach and capabilities with retail clients.

“The indexing giant nobody knows,” The New York Times

Barclays Global Investors (BGI) was the pioneer of index investing and the exchange-traded fund (ETF) family. In 1999, BGI managed $407 billion in investors’ money by the performance of major market indexes. BGI was the world’s biggest money manager of funds for institutions (e.g., corporate pension funds and nonprofit organizations). At the time, index investing was a counter to much of what Wall Street held dear – active stock picking. BGI’s Chief Executive Officer at the time, Patricia Dunn, contended this assumption by saying, “We got a lot of our energy from being outsiders and challengers of investing wisdom.”

“BGI thinks big,” Institutional investor

Wells Fargo Investment Advisors (WFIA), born from a San Francisco bank trust department in 1973, was a think tank that pioneered market indexing. WFIA believed that capital markets were efficient and that trying to beat the market was an exercise in futility. By 1997, Barclay’s Global Investors (having absorbed WFIA) had a staggering $420 billion under management globally.

WFNIA’s modular funds capture the U.S. equity market

In 1996, Barclays Bank acquired Wells Fargo Nikko Investment Advisors (WFNIA), which was renamed Barclays Global Investors (BGI), and merged Barclays De Zoete Wedd (BZW), its own asset-management arm, into the business. WFNIA was appealing to Barclays because of its quantitative, index-based approach to investing. BGI further developed an investment vehicle, called an exchange-traded fund (ETF), which allowed retail clients to buy commonly traded indexes.

Three guys menu

In January 2006, Larry Fink, Chief Executive Officer of Blackrock, met Stanley O’Neal, Chief Executive Officer of Merrill Lynch, for breakfast at Three Guys, a restaurant on the Upper East Side. During this breakfast, Larry and Stanley decided to merge Merrill Lynch Investment Managers and BlackRock. Both leaders signed the menu to indicate their commitment to moving the deal forward. The deal doubled BlackRock’s assets under management to more than $1 trillion.

The New York Times article on the Barclays deal

In July 2009, BlackRock acquired Barclays Global Investors (BGI) for about $13.5 billion in one of the largest transactions in the money management industry. The deal elevated BlackRock to the largest money manager in the world with around $2.7 trillion in assets. The acquisition of BGI expanded BlackRock’s operations, global reach and presence in index funds. Larry Fink, Chief Executive Officer of BlackRock, said that two businesses had little overlap, which made the merger very attractive for both parties.

Ron Kahn books

First published in 1994, this book on scientific active investing by Richard Grinold and Ronald Kahn of BGI took the industry by storm. Their pioneering work on risk models, portfolio optimization, and trading analysis still underpins BlackRock’s Model-Based Fixed income (MBFI) and Scientific Active Equity (SAE) quantitative active portfolio management businesses today. Now in its third edition and with Chinese and Japanese translations, the BGI duo’s publication, referred to as “G-K” by PhDs and investors alike, continues to be the benchmark by which scientific active portfolio management is measured globally.

Yankee Ticket stub

Without this ticket, the BlackRock-BGI merger might never have happened. With it, Rob Kapito found Barclays CEO Bob Diamond, made the case for BlackRock’s offer and jump-started the transaction.

Citibanamex + BlackRock

In 2018 BlackRock acquired the asset management business of Citibanamex in Mexico. This acquisition allowed BlackRock to gain full capabilities as an asset manager in Mexico, bringing global and local investment solutions to one of Latin America’s most dynamic markets, and transforming BlackRock into the country’s largest asset manager.

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