“BlackRock, the world’s biggest money manager, said first-quarter earnings rose 10 percent as its exchange-traded funds drew client cash and assets increased.
Net income climbed to $632 million, or $3.62 a share, from $572 million, or $3.14, a year earlier, the New York-based company said today in a statement. Excluding certain items, BlackRock’s adjusted earnings of $3.65 a share beat the $3.57 average estimate of 20 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
Chief Executive Officer Laurence D. Fink, 60, has reorganized BlackRock’s senior leadership and last month announced 300 job cuts. Last year, BlackRock created a series of lower-fee ETFs to reverse a decline in its U.S. market share and in March announced a partnership with Fidelity Investments as it seeks to sell more ETFs directly to U.S. retail investors. BlackRock gathered $40.5 billion in the first quarter, boosting assets 3.8 percent to $3.9 trillion.
“This quarter is more broadly supportive of asset managers in general, with strong January flows for both ETFs and mutual funds,” Luke Montgomery, a research analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in New York, said in an interview before the earnings were announced. “For BlackRock, the question is how much did they participate in the trend toward active equities.”
BlackRock announced results before the start of regular U.S. trading. The shares gained 28 percent this year through yesterday, compared with the 26 percent increase in the 20- member Standard & Poor’s index of asset managers and custody banks. The stock increased 24 percent in the first quarter, hitting $258.70 on March 20, at the time the highest ever.
BlackRock, which acquired Barclays Global Investors in December 2009 to expand into passive investments, offers actively managed stock and bond funds, the iShares exchange- traded funds, hedge funds and portfolios that use mathematical models…..”
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