BlackRock boss Larry Fink hails fund amid Pimco turmoil
BlackRock boss Larry Fink moved to exploit upheaval at rival Pimco yesterday by lauding his group’s own bond offering, as its fixed-income assets ballooned by $11bn.
Fink, who helped invent mortgage backed securities as a young banker with First Boston in the 1980s, said BlackRock differed from its rivals by not having a chief investment officer, traditionally the most dominant position at a fund house.
“The team-based approach is a critical differentiator for BlackRock. We do not and never had a centralised CIO. We do not have a house view or any one person setting a single investment platform,” he said yesterday.
The point was seen as a veiled reference to BlackRock’s great buyside rival Pimco, which saw $23.5bn pulled out of its funds after the sudden exit of Pimco CIO Bill Gross last month.
Gross founded Pimco and has been considered the essence of the California-based business for the past 40 years. His flagship total return bond funds at Pimco held $293bn at its peak last year.
BlackRock said fixed income was its strongest product for the three months ended 30 September after retail investors added $5.4bn and its iShares fixed income range attracted $3.7bn. Institutional investors pulled $3.5bn from its active funds but added $5.5bn to passive funds. Fixed income inflows were $11.1bn overall. Group profits rose 26 per cent to $917m.