The asset management firm BlackRock Inc. is trying to expand its business by marketing the proprietary trade processing and risk management technology platform, BlackRock Solutions, that it has used internally for 12 years.
BlackRock, which is part of PNC Financial Services Group Inc. and is majority-owned by the Pittsburgh banking company and BlackRock employees, has $177 billion of assets under management. It built BlackRock Solutions, said president Ralph Schlosstein, because no system on the market fit its investing strategy well.
"There is no software for running an institutional-quality, asset management business," he said.
BlackRock Solutions terminals have trade entry, data processing, clearing, and compliance features, as well as risk management capability.
They can supply comprehensive risk analysis for any security or portfolio, Mr. Schlosstein said.
BlackRock Solutions will be marketed widely to banks, insurance companies, and pension funds and more selectively to competing asset managers, he said.
The company supplies risk management services to 20 institutional clients and one government-sponsored enterprise, Freddie Mac. It makes small bets on market movements, often by slightly altering the portfolio of a major index.
It needs a tremendous amount of data to track where its investments are moving, Mr. Schlosstein said.
For example, the company may base an investment on a bond index and may slightly overweight or underweight a portfolio's composition. Such bets impose a "staggering information processing challenge," Mr. Schlosstein said.
The BlackRock Solutions system analyzed $1.2 trillion worth of assets in the first half of 2000, the company said.
