BlackRock ends the year with $10 trillion in AUM

BlackRock's assets under management totaled $10.01 trillion as of Dec. 31, surpassing the $10 trillion mark for the first time, buoyed by $211.7 billion of net inflows in the quarter and $540 billion for the year, the company said in an earnings report Friday.

The firm's AUM was up 5.8% compared with the end of the previous quarter and up 15.4% from a year earlier.

"It's just a number," said Laurence "Larry" D. Fink, BlackRock's chairman and CEO, in response to an analyst during the firm's earnings call.

He told analysts on the call that the firm has attracted $1.8 trillion in net assets over the past five years.

Growth of BlackRock's assets in 2021 was boosted by $864.1 billion from market performance but was impacted by a loss of $111.6 billion from foreign-exchange exposures, BlackRock's report showed.

BlackRock's ETF business continued its meteoric growth in 2021 with net inflows of $103.9 billion in the quarter more than twice as much compared with net inflows of $58 billion in the prior quarter. The firm's ETF franchise attracted a total of $306 billion in net inflows in the year, compared with $185 billion in 2020.

Both the 2021 fourth quarter and full-year net inflows into ETFs were records, said Gary Shedlin, BlackRock's chief financial officer, during the earnings call.

The fourth-quarter ETF net inflows "reflected some seasonality but also reflected the diversity of our product and client segments and accelerating secular shifts occurring in the market. We saw continued strength in core (strategies) but our strategic product segments, particularly sustainable and fixed income, which were the largest contributors to fourth-quarter flows," Mr. Shedlin said.

Total net inflows in the quarter ended Dec. 31 were $211.7 billion, compared with $75.3 billion in the prior three-month period.

Institutional net inflows totaled $43.1 billion in the fourth quarter, up from $17.3 billion in the prior quarter, with active strategies attracting $83.5 billion in net inflows (prior quarter, $25.6 billion in net inflows) while passive strategies had net outflows of $40.4 billion (prior quarter, $8.2 billion in net outflows).

During the call, Mr. Shedlin attributed the decline in passive assets to year-end changes by investors.

Net inflows from retail investors in the most recent quarter were $21.5 billion, compared with $22.7 billion in the third quarter.

Cash management net inflows totaled $43.9 billion in the fourth quarter (prior quarter, $12.4 billion in net outflows) and advisory services experienced net outflows of $728 million (prior quarter, $10.3 billion of net outflows).

Among other issues, Mr. Shedlin said during the analyst call that BlackRock expects to increase its current employee base of about 1,800 by about 10% in 2022 "with a continued focus on optimizing our talent pyramid for more junior employees."

Blackrock's revenue totaled $5.1 billion in the quarter ended Dec. 31, up 1.1% from the prior quarter and up 14% from the year-earlier period. Net income was down 6.9% to $1.6 billion in the fourth quarter and down 6.2% from the fourth quarter of 2020.