In the FT’s “Future of Investing” series, Larry Fink, chief executive and chairman of BlackRock talks to Henry Sender, international financial correspondent. This is excellent video footage.

Part 1:

Fink explains his concerns that the global economy is not as robust as the market is pricing in and that the economic recovery will be an elongated struggle.

Click here or on the image below to view the video clip.

Oct 2: Consolidation inevitable in asset management

Part 2:

Fink discusses the need to be global in the asset management business and the robust future for the hedge fund industry.

Click here or on the image below to view the video clip.

Source: Henry Sender,

...

BlackRock’s $13.5 billion deal raises the valuation bar.

ETF and index people the world ‘round are smiling today. $13.5 billion is a big number. And this BlackRock deal is big not just for the index/ETF industry, but the financial sector in general.  It underscores just how big basis point-linked passive assets have gotten.

As I said a couple days ago in my IU.eu blog titled BlackRock IS the Buyer (Paul Amery has a nice follow-on blog there as well), this is a powerhouse deal. It’s a deal that minces no words, and says what it means. And what it means is we’ve suddenly got a global behemoth, THE global behemoth of an asset manager, with $2.7 trillion in assets. Good lord.  And frankly, on paper at least, it’s a marriage made in heaven, with BGI in a dominant position where BlackRock is mostly absent: ETFs and institutional indexed asset

...

New reports put BlackRock's deal for BGI at $13 billion.

 

During the weekend, several new articles appeared in British papers reporting that BlackRock Inc. is closing in on a deal to acquire Barclays Global Investors, the parent company of iShares, in a transaction worth up to US$13 billion.

But not all the reports were as definitive as the one coming out of the US late last week. Pensions & Investments magazine, on its Web site, broke the news late Friday afternoon after markets had closed in the US. It quoted unnamed sources as saying that the groundwork for a deal was in place and that an announcement would be forthcoming.

The story also had estimates that a BlackRock purchase of BGI would surpass $10 billion. (See related story here.)

However, in a story over the weekend, a report out of London by the Financial Times said that Barclays isn't expected to

...

After watching the destruction of the financial sector over the past 12-18 months, I (like many investors) became a huge bear on many of its components.  I have been a big advocate that in order for the markets to recover, the financial sector needs to stabilize.  Without a strong financial sector in place, the rest of the economy will lag due to the lack of credit availability, and housing prices will continue to decline.  On Monday, Treasury Secretary Geithner released his Toxic-Asset solution to try to help restore confidence in the U.S. banking industry.  This plan has significantly changed my view on the sector and may be the biggest step, other than the TARP program, to revive U.S. banks.

The markets obviously applauded the move by the Treasury as many of the bank stocks surged significantly during trading on Monday.  Today’s leaders in the

...

Blackrock (BLK) has been one of 2 financials I've held through thick and thin, even in the worst of it for the sector - Mastercard (MA) being the other. You can see from the chart, you would not even realize it's a financial based on it's stock behavior - many of its peers are down in the 40-60% range over similar period. (I'll post the chart later, it's not loading right now) :) This is a nice overview story on the NYTimes, led by one of my favorite managers Larry Fink [Mar 18: Larry Fink from Blackrock Getting more Bullish]. It has been interesting to see when other companies, or even states get into trouble [Dec 7: Blackrock Swoops in to Help Florida] that Blackrock is on the other side of the Bat Phone. In fact, when the Federal Reserve needed some help - they turned ...