BlackRock

New York-based, NYSE-listed asset manager founded in 1988, managing $15.5 trillion at the end of September 2026 across iShares ETFs, active and private markets strategies, alongside its Aladdin technology platform.

Industry: Asset management | Location: New York, United States | Founded: 1988

About BlackRock

BlackRock is a New York-based investment management company listed on the New York Stock Exchange as BLK. It runs index and active funds, including iShares exchange-traded funds, private markets strategies and cash management, and sells investment and risk technology through its Aladdin platform. It reported $15.5 trillion in assets under management at 30 September 2026. As of March 2026 it said it had nearly 25,000 employees in more than 40 countries, with Middle East offices in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Riyadh and Kuwait City.

BlackRock was founded in New York in 1988 by eight co-founders, including Larry Fink, Rob Kapito and Susan Wagner, to manage fixed-income assets. It developed Aladdin to manage portfolios and risk, listed on the NYSE in the 1990s, and reported $165 billion of assets under management at the end of 1999. Fink is chairman and chief executive, Kapito is president, Martin Small is chief financial officer, and Rob Goldstein is chief operating officer.

BlackRock says it has provided financial technology since 1999 and that Aladdin and eFront serve more than 1,000 clients and 130,000 individuals, as of May 2023. Its Aladdin page names Franklin Templeton and Citi as clients.

The company's history page lists a series of acquisitions without giving years. They include Merrill Lynch Investment Managers, Barclays Global Investors, the source of iShares, eFront, which brought private markets to Aladdin, and more recently Aperio, Global Infrastructure Partners, the data provider Preqin and the private debt manager HPS Investment Partners.

For 2025 BlackRock reported revenue of $24.2 billion, up 19 percent, and net income attributable to the company of $5.55 billion, down 13 percent, with record net inflows of $698 billion. Assets under management stood at $14.0 trillion at the end of 2025. Its release of 14 October 2026 reported $205 billion of net inflows in the third quarter.

In the Gulf, TechScoop has reported BlackRock's commitment of up to $400 million to the Dubai-based platform Positive Zero in 2023, and a $40 billion deal by a consortium tied to BlackRock and Abu Dhabi's MGX to buy Aligned Data Centers.

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