BlackRock Fund Advisors

BlackRock Fund Advisors is a privately owned corporation that acts as a subsidiary of the BlackRock Institutional Trust Company. It was originally founded in 1984 in San Francisco, later expanding to Wilmington, Delaware and Princeton, New Jersey. Originally known as the Barclays Global Fund Advisors, BlackRock Inc. bought the company for $13.5 billion in 2009, effectively making BlackRock the world’s largest money manager. Barclays kept a 19.9 percent hold in the combined company, financing coming from the sale of equity to institutional investors and loans from Barclays and other banks. Now known as BlackRock Fund Advisors, it operates as the investment advisor to BlackRock Institutional Trust, primarily providing services to investment companies and pooled investment vehicles, with investment companies making up 90% of its clients and pooled investment vehicles making up the rest. With the addition of BlackRock Fund Advisors, BlackRock created a company overseeing $2.7 trillion in assets, managing more than the Federal Reserve. The addition of the acquired company also allowed Blackrock to extend its line of products and services. BlackRock Fund Advisors launches and manages equity, fixed income, and balanced mutual funds as well as commodity and currency exchange traded funds, such as from iShares, forming its profits from fees that are taken as a percentage of assets. Today BlackRock Fund Advisors manages an estimated $863 billion in assets, employing over 700 personnel who work in overseeing over 300 clients. In the short amount of time from 2010 to 2015, BlackRock Fund Advisors has managed to almost triple its total assets under management. Just by itself, BlackRock Fund Advisors ranks amongst the top 20 largest investment firms in the nation. Laurence Douglas Fink, who is also the CEO of BlackRock Inc. and who oversaw the original purchase of the company back in 2009, acts as the CEO and chairman for BlackRock Fund Advisors.