By Carolina Mandl and Davide Barbuscia
NEW YORK (Reuters) – BlackRock Inc chairman and Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink said on Wednesday he is not planning to leave the world’s biggest asset manager “any time soon,” while his team unveiled plans for revenue growth.
Fink, 70, said he has no plans to retire, but BlackRock still has been planning for his succession.
“I have no higher priority than developing the next generational leaders for BlackRock,” he said at the firm’s investors day event.
Fink co-founded BlackRock in 1988 along with seven partners. Now, investors and analysts have begun to question who will next take the helm of the New York-based asset manager.
“BlackRock is at a bit of a strategic inflection point as it seeks to ramp up growth and meet client needs. As a result, succession at BlackRock takes on an added significance,” said Cathy Seifert, vice-president at research firm CFRA.
BlackRock’s top executives said the company is keeping an eye on acquisitions and targets a 5% organic base fee revenue growth between 2023-2027, the same pace it grew between 2019 and 2022. Still, the firm sees its market share in fee revenue reach 3.1% from 2.8%.
Private markets will play an important role in BlackRock’s growth in the future, according to Edwin Conway, global head of equity private market, as investors will seek diversification beyond debt and equities. “We’re firm believers we’ll double our revenues in next five years,” he said.
The firm manages $320 billion in alternative assets, such as real estate, private credit and infrastructure. Last year, the private markets area posted $1 billion in revenues.
Shares in BlackRock were up nearly 2% following BlackRock’s executives comments and expectations that a Federal Reserve pause on rate hikes will benefit asset managers.
Fink talked about potential inorganic growth opportunities for the firm that would be “transformational,” a concept he had already expressed in April, adding possible areas to expand the firm’s footprint could include data, information, technology, or could be related to distribution.
“The most important thing, I will assure you, is a process of testing ourselves and really ask ourselves how should we evolve our business model to best serve our clients,” he said.
(Reporting by Carolina Mandl and Davide Barbuscia, in New York; Editing by David Gregorio)
