Record first quarter sales of BlackRock’s low-cost index-tracking iShares products of $64.5 billion (€60.1 billion) helped to propel the AUM of the world’s largest asset manager to $5.4 trillion in the first quarter of this year, up from $5.1 trillion in the preceding quarter.
Earnings of $5.23 per share were up a third compared with the first quarter of 2016 and higher than the $4.89 expected by analysts. However, revenue of $2.82 billion was lower than the consensus estimate of $2.87 billion.
Net inflows from clients in the Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific amounted to $55.8 billion, $18.1 billion and $6.4 billion respectively.
A black spot was BlackRock’s actively managed funds which last quarter saw $1.8 billion in withdrawals.
BlackRock said that its iShares exchange-traded funds captured the top share of ETF industry flows globally, in the US and in Europe, and in equity and fixed income.
“BlackRock’s first quarter results reflect the strategic decisions we have made to complement our investment capabilities with industry-leading technology,” said BlackRock’s chairman and chief executive Laurence Fink.
“Both retail and institutional investors continued to utilise BlackRock’s iShares ETFs as the building blocks for their portfolios and in combinations to drive active returns.”
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