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Bert Powers's avatar

They protected banksters and they go after protesters, that says it all. It seems the alphabet agencies are all looking at protecting the very people they should be prosecuting. Justice in reverse.

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Good Deed's avatar

-New York Times September 28, 2016

‘I Am Aladdin’

Over the last 10 years, Mr. Fink has transformed BlackRock from a bond shop catering to pension funds and insurance companies into an asset-gathering machine that uses advanced technology to reimagine how investors buy, sell and assess the risks of a wide variety of securities. Via its $1 trillion-plus in exchange-traded funds, BlackRock has been instrumental in creating newly liquid markets in high-yield and corporate bonds — a direct attack on the business model of banks like Deutsche Bank.

And through its big data-mining risk platform, Aladdin, or Asset Liability and Debt and Derivatives Investment Network, BlackRock says it has developed the market’s most highly evolved framework for stress-testing how securities will respond to certain situations — such as a sudden rise in interest rates or what happens in the event of a political surprise, like Donald J. Trump being elected president.

Staffed by 2,300 of BlackRock’s 13,000 employees, Aladdin promises to help firms trade, analyze and keep a compliant eye on the assets they manage. In an era of severe regulatory scrutiny, the service has become quite popular. Seventy-five firms — including Deutsche Bank’s asset management unit and Freddie Mac — managing a total of $10 trillion, now use it.

Fink’s Upward Trajectory

In over two decades at BlackRock, Laurence D. Fink has watched the firm grow to manage $5 trillion.

1983Laurence D. Fink presides over one of the first collateralized mortgage obligation deals on Wall Street — a $1 billion offering by Freddie Mac.

1986Mr. Fink loses $100 million in a mortgage bet gone bad.

1988Mr. Fink and seven other executives start an investment group focused on buying bonds under the umbrella of the private equity firm Blackstone.

1992The firm adopts the name BlackRock and oversees $17 billion.

1994General Electric contracts BlackRock’s Aladdin risk platform to wind down the brokerage firm Kidder, Peabody & Company.

1999BlackRock goes public with $165 billion in assets under management.

2003Mr. Fink, a New York Stock Exchange board member, is embroiled in a dispute over the pay of Richard A. Grasso, the exchange’s chief.

2006BlackRock acquires Merrill Lynch’s investment management division, gaining a large equity business. Assets under management are $1.1 trillion.

2007Mr. Fink is nearly named chief executive of Merrill Lynch.

2009Treasury hires BlackRock to analyze toxic securities.

BlackRock acquires Barclays Global Investors and its exchange-traded funds. BlackRock manages E.T.F.s with $495 billion of the E.T.F. market’s overall $777 billion. BlackRock’s total assets under management swell to $3.3 trillion.

2013BlackRock’s E.T.F.s reach $752 billion. The overall E.T.F. market is $1.6 trillion. BlackRock’s total assets under management are $4 trillion.

2016In August, BlackRock stock hits a new high. Its E.T.F.s are worth $1.1 trillion, while the overall E.T.F. market grows to $2.3 trillion. BlackRock’s total assets under management reach $5 trillion.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/business/dealbook/at-blackrock-shaping-the-shifts-in-power.amp.html

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