BlackRock – which this week pledged to put sustainability at the heart of its investment process – saw its assets under management (AuM) grow by just under a quarter and total net inflows reaching a record $429 billion (€384.6 billion) by the end of 2019.
The New York-based firm said that strong fixed income and cash flows and “record” activity in illiquid assets had delivered strong results for 2019.
AuM at the world’s largest asset manager reached around $7.4 trillion by the end of the last quarter – up from $5.97 trillion at the end of 2018, an increase of 24%.
The fourth quarter alone saw $129 billion of overall positive flows, driven by an influx of $75 billion into its iShares exchange-traded fund (ETF) business.
In the European ETF industry, iShares had the largest net inflows in 2019 at nearly $60 billion, followed by UBS ETFs with $15.9 billion and Invesco with $12.12 billion, according to separate data from consultancy firm ETFGI.
According to BlackRock’s chairman and chief executive Larry Fink, the results “reflect the systematic investments we’ve made to build broader and deeper client relationships and meet their evolving needs”.
“Clients are increasingly looking to BlackRock as a strategic partner to deliver not just products, but broader thought leadership on macro and geopolitical issues and whole-portfolio solutions powered by technology,” he said.
Earlier in the week, the fund giant pledged to put sustainability at the heart of its investment process following a number of reports claiming that BlackRock and other firms have so far been lagging in the field.
In an open letter to clients from the firm’s global executive committee, the asset manager outlined its future strategy, saying it believed sustainability should be its “new standard” for investing.
The annual letter from Fink to chief executives also highlighted how sustainability, and most significantly climate change, is “reshaping finance and investing”.
©2020 funds europe
