New York: BlackRock clients continued to pour money into the firm’s long-term investment funds in the fourth quarter, seeking to capitalize on the preceding rout in stock and bond markets.
Net flows into those products totaled $146 billion for the period, the world’s biggest asset manager said Friday in a statement. That beat the $124 billion average estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Total net flows, which include outflows from the firm’s cash-management accounts, were $114 billion.
The influx of client cash, coupled with a fourth-quarter rebound in equity and fixed-income markets after a bruising first nine months of the year, boosted assets under management at New York-based BlackRock to $8.59 trillion, up from $7.96 trillion at the end of September.
“BlackRock’s focus remains on investing for the long term,” CEO Larry Fink, 70, said in the statement. “The current environment offers incredible opportunities for long-term investors, and we enter 2023 well-positioned and confident in our ability to deliver for our clients, employees and shareholders.”
Investors have been buffeted by the threat of a recession and the efforts of the Federal Reserve to tame inflation by ratcheting up interest rates. The S&P 500 tumbled 19 per cent last year, while the Bloomberg US Aggregate Index, which includes Treasuries, investment-grade corporate bonds as well as mortgage- and asset-backed securities, plunged a record 13 per cent.
Adjusted net income fell 18 per cent from a year earlier to $1.36 billion, or $8.93 a share, beating Wall Street’s average estimate of $8.08. Revenue declined 15 per cent to $4.34 billion, topping the $4.25 billion that analysts expected.
