Toru Yamanaka/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesLaurence D. Fink, chairman and chief of the money manager BlackRock.The giant money manager BlackRock on Wednesday turned in a strong third-quarter profit despite the continuing uncertainty of investors.
The news comes at a time when many investors have been continuing to shy away from taking financial risks.
BlackRock benefited from strong interest among investors in less risky bond funds and passively managed exchange-traded funds. More money flowed into the company’s iShares E.T.F. business than at any time since BlackRock acquired the business from Barclays in 2009.
The firm said that on an adjusted basis, third-quarter profit rose 17 percent, to $610 million, from the period a year earlier, and 9 percent from the previous quarter. It earned $3.47 a share on a diluted basis, a record for the company, and exceeded the $3.32 a share expected by analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News.
On a generally accepted accounting principles basis, earnings increased 8 percent, to $642 million or $3.65 a share, from $554 million, or $3.08 a share, in the quarter a year earlier.
BlackRock has grown into the world’s largest money manager over the last decade thanks to its acquisition of iShares, but also as a result of growth in its traditional stock and bond mutual funds and in its more sophisticated offerings for larger, institutional investors.
In the latest quarter, the company increased the total pool of money it was managing for investors by 10 percent from a year earlier. Revenue across the company rose to $2.32 billion, up 4 percent from the previous quarter and also 4 percent from the third quarter of 2011. In the second quarter, both revenue and assets under management fell at BlackRock.
The firm’s chief executive, Laurence D. Fink, said in a statement that BlackRock “achieved these results through robust new business generation across each of our channels, with particular strength in growth areas on which we’ve focused, including retail and iShares.”
In recent weeks, Charles Schwab and Vanguard said they would lower the fees on some of their most popular E.T.F.’s. BlackRock followed suit on Monday, saying it would introduce a new lower-cost brand of E.T.F. for retail investors, the iShares Core Series. The move could help BlackRock maintain its status as the world’s largest E.T.F. manager.
No comments:
Post a Comment