BlackRock Inc. Chief Executive Laurence Fink said his firm was hired to manage assets for Swiss Reinsurance Co. and other institutions as investors are moving "record" amounts of funds out of cash.
BlackRock gathered $3 billion from an unnamed institutional investor in Denmark and may get $11 billion from an undisclosed client, Fink said Tuesday. He did not say how much his firm manages for Swiss Re.
Investor appetite for risk is returning as the Federal Reserve shows no intention of raising interest rates, assuring investors they're "fine," Fink said. "The business is changing dramatically now," he said. Investors are "looking for more holistic advice and more and more clients are looking for beta products," such as index funds and exchange-traded funds.
The acquisition of Barclays Global, expected to close in the first quarter, will boost BlackRock's assets to more than $3 trillion and add passive investment strategies, such as ETFs that mimic indexes. The deal will also add quantitative products that use mathematical models to select securities to trade.
