Blackstone to BlackRock, Company that rules the world!
Current time is May 2014. Ukraine is fighting with Russia in alliance with NATO. The war between Israel and Palestine is going on. Crisis world economy. World Bank and IMF are busy making predictions about the GDP and SDGs of different countries. What will be the next world economy? Among these, today I will discuss a company or organization that alone controls a large part of the world’s economy. Blackrock. A short name. But they have $10 trillion worth of business or assets. This number of foreign reserves cannot be expected in any other country except America and China. Laurence Douglas Fink. Whose hand made this huge institution. America is still the most powerful economy in the world. However, Blackrock’s help has also been needed by the American government at times. On the other hand, we know one of the richest companies in the world like Apple, Microsoft. Many other big companies, including Google, Amazon,3M, Pfizer, CNN, Fox news, Meta or Facebook. Etc. are working with this BlackRock investment. The three most influential economic countries in the world, whether America, Europe or China, also need the blessings of BlackRock. Food, medical, construction and housing. Even on such basic things, this company has absolute dominance.
Larry Fink was born in an ordinary Jewish family. In 1976, Larry Fink started working as a security trader at the American investment firm Boston First.
In just 8 years due to his efficiency, he established himself as the managing director of the company. He was only 31 years old then. Within a short period of time, the company managed to bring its assets to one billion dollars. At the time, it was considered a huge success for a company to generate a billion-dollar fortune. But luck had a little stumble. Business can sometimes go wrong with complex calculations and decisions. In 1986, a small calculation error cost the company $100 million. A small mistake brought a streak of worry to his fortune at that time. When Mr. Fink became known in the financial markets, people began to think of him as an anonymous person. And within a few days from the managing director of the First Boston Company, he went to take the responsibility of the chairman. He had to leave the company to lose $100 million.
Larry Fink had a bit of a mental breakdown when he was fired from the company. Thinking that he will not do any job as an employee in the future.
In the meantime, some quick events happened in his life, quite dramatically he was introduced to the CEO of Blackstone Group, Stephen A Schwarzman, And Stephen kept a lot of information about Larry Fink. Stephen feels lucky to get Larry as a free parson by chance. There was also lot of trust in him. Blackstone was like any other basic company that time. This company could not make any charismatic project or profit. Mr. Stephen gave Mr. Larry Fink an opportunity to start a new company with 5 million dollars. Larry Fink accepts the offer and quickly got down to work. BLACKSTONE FINANCE MANAGEMENT COMPANY was born.
By 1988, BlackRock was very close to bankruptcy. But in just five years after Larry Fink joined, the company’s revenue reached nearly $53 billion. because of his performance,
Among these, more and more other companies started investing with Blackstone. Another incident occurred in 1994. The CEO of Blackstone Group suddenly decides to sell his shares. He sold his 35 percent stake for just $240 million. However, Steve regrets this decision in later life, and accepts it was the biggest mistake of his life. His stake of $240 million would have been worth more than $50 billion today. But what else to do at the right time people often make mistakes to take the right decision.
Larry Fink wasn’t too worried when Mr. Stephen A. Schwarzman fell apart. By then the company was almost under his control. After leaving Stephen A. Schwarzman, Larry Fink wanted to create a new identity for his company. The journey from Blackstone to Blackrock Begans, Changing the company name from BlackRock to Blackstone has not changed much in the market. Investors have full faith in Larry Fink as before. A major turning point for BlackRock Company came in 1999. The first IPO was announced at just $14 per share at the time. And about 900 million dollars in funds accumulated. Within a few days, he managed to create assets of 165 billion dollars. Larry Fink realizes that if he wants to build something bigger, he needs to remove the obstacles in front of him. Another path begins. Larry Fink started buying up all the companies that were competitive with Blackrock one by one.
2006 Larry Fink bought the Merrill Lynch company, followed by Barclays Global (2009), after which no other financial company could stand in front of BlackRock. Blackrock became the world’s most powerful asset management financial company. After that asset management activities spread from one country to another.
Insurance funds, pension funds, various types of bonds, securities, stock regulation, besides real estate, among other investments, these are the main businesses of BlackRock.
At present there are about 90 offices in about 38 countries of the world. There are also various affiliated business organizations in about a hundred countries.
It would take too much time to discuss the rise and workings of BlackRock in detail. Investments of this company are so versatile investments, small expenses in daily life of every person, some part of BlackRock pocket must go. Although it sounds like a fairy tale, behind it there is a lot of hard work, talent and planning to match the era. We would definitely like to see more companies like BlackRock or American Multinational Investment Management Corporation.
Questions may arise. We don’t easily know the name of such a huge global company. That’s because of company owner Larry Fink. He prefers to work from behind.
KNN Linku
Writer, Columnist
knnlinku @ gmail.com
