The world’s leading asset manager BlackRock has revealed its assets under management (AUM) grew to $6.96trn at the end of September 2019, aided by its index and ETF businesses which accounted for 29% and 36% of total assets, respectively.
In the third quarter of the year, BlackRock received $84.2bn in net flows with its active management side of the business contributing $741m (0.9%). Indexing and iShares ETFs had inflows of $51.5bn for the quarter, ballooning its total AUM for the investment style to $4.6bn.
BlackRock has acknowledged the success of its iShares' business and merged its iShares EMEA sales team with its mutual fund sales team.
Across all asset classes, for both active and passive products, it was fixed income that attracted the most assets with just under $35bn of net flows. This was ahead of equity with $9.9bn and alternatives with $8bn.
As a result of the quarter’s flows, fixed income products accounted for a third of the BlackRock’s $7trn AUM with $2.3trn however, equity products remained far ahead with $3.5trn worth of assets.
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This trend was also apparent within its iShares ETF products as fixed income ETFs had inflows of $23.7bn whereas equity ETFs had inflows of $13.1bn in Q3.
The gap between the two asset classes is even larger if we expand the time horizon to year-to-date. Fixed income ETFs have pulled in $87.4bn, significantly ahead of equity ETFs with only $15.6bn.
Larry Fink, chairman and CEO at BlackRock, commented: “BlackRock generated $84 billion of total net inflows in the third quarter, demonstrating strength in fixed income, cash and alternative strategies, as clients re-balanced, de-risked and sought uncorrelated sources of return in the face of significant global market volatility.”
