BlackRock is the world’s largest asset manager and one of the most valuable publicly traded financial firms by market capitalization.
The company manages money for institutions, governments, retirement plans, and individual investors. Its product range includes mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, and other investment strategies. BlackRock’s iShares family is especially prominent in the ETF market.
BlackRock was founded in 1988 by Larry Fink and several partners. It began as an institutional asset-management business and grew through product expansion and acquisitions, including its purchase of Barclays Global Investors in 2009.
Asset managers are sometimes confused with banks because both are major financial companies. BlackRock generally manages client assets rather than taking deposits and making loans in the traditional commercial-banking model. Its market capitalization represents the value of BlackRock’s own shares, not the total value of assets it manages for clients.