BlackRock's AuM Rose In Q3, Adjusted Net Income Gained

Tom Burroughes

20 October 2016

Assets under management at , the world’s largest listed asset management firm, rose 14 per cent year-on-year in the third quarter to stand at $5.117 trillion at the end of September. This was a rise of 5 per cent from the second quarter of 2016.

Net income on an adjusted basis stood at $854 million in Q3, a 1 per cent rise on the same quarter of 2015, the firm said. Adjusted operating income was $1.216 billion, a fall of 1 per cent. Revenues, on a GAAP basis, fell 3 per cent to stand at $2.837 billion.

“BlackRock’s business model was built to thrive in all market environments,” Laurence Fink, the firm’s chairman and chief executive, said in a statement. “In the third quarter, even as investor preferences continued to migrate from equity to fixed income and cash, and away from active strategies, the diversity of our platform drove nearly $70 billion of total net inflows,” he said.

“Our $55 billion of long-term net inflows were positive across both active and index strategies, and positive across every asset class and region,” Fink added.

BlackRock reported net inflows of $38.7 billion, $13.4 billion and $3.1 billion from clients in the Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific, respectively.

At 30 September 2016, BlackRock managed 63 per cent of its long-term AuM for investors in the Americas and 37 per cent for clients in EMEA and Asia-Pacific.

The firm said retail long-term net outflows of $2.2 billion reflected net outflows of $1.9 billion and $0.3 billion from the US and internationally, respectively. Fixed income saw net inflows of $5.8 billion, paced by flows into emerging market debt and high yield bond funds. Equity net outflows of $3.9 billion were primarily related to outflows from European and US equities. Multi-asset net outflows of $3.5 billion were largely due to outflows from world allocation strategies.

iShares - the ETF brand of BlackRock – experienced long-term net inflows of $51.3 billion and these were led by equity net inflows of $25.5 billion, with strength in emerging market precision exposures and iShares Core ETFs. Fixed income net inflows of $22.7 billion were diversified across corporate, emerging markets and core bond funds. Commodities iShares generated $2.9 billion of net inflows, BlackRock said.