West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – BlackRock, Inc. announced the purchase agreement to acquire Barclays Global Investors, including its market-leading ETF platform, iShares, from Barclays PLC.

“We are incredibly excited about the potential to significantly expand the scale and scope of our work with investors throughout the world. The combination of active and passive investment products will be unsurpassed, and will enhance our ability to offer comprehensive solutions and tailored portfolios to institutional and retail clients,” said Laurence D. Fink, BlackRock Chairman and CEO. “People are at the heart of successful firms, and the depth of talent in BlackRock Global Investors will be tremendous. The thought leadership and intellectual capital of the combined firm ensure we will remain at the forefront of addressing key investment issues and trends that have emerged over the past decade and are now accelerating dramatically, including globalization of capital markets, a greater focus on asset allocation, multi-asset class solutions, fiduciary management, risk management and advisory services.”

The combination of BlackRock and BGI would bring together market leaders in active and index strategies to create the preeminent asset management firm operating under the name BlackRock Global Investors. The transaction would create an independent and fully integrated asset management firm with combined assets under management of over $2.7 trillion.

The firm’s products will include equities, fixed income, cash management and alternatives, and will offer clients diversified access to global markets through separate accounts, common trust funds, mutual funds, ETFs, hedge funds, and closed-end funds.

BlackRock has received commitments from a group of institutional investors to purchase 19.9 million shares at the closing of the transaction for a total of $2.8 billion.

Tags: asset class, asset-management-firm, assets-under-management, barclays plc, barclays-global-investors, blackrock inc, class solutions, closed end funds, common trust funds, comprehensive solutions, fiduciary management, index strategies, institutional-investors, investment issues, ishares, management risk, passive investment, retail clients, thought leadership, west palm beach

Banking Business Review – The board of directors of Barclays has entered into an agreement for the sale of its iShares business to Blue Sparkle, a new limited partnership established by CVC Capital Partners, for a total consideration of approximately $4.4 billion.

Barclays has said that this transaction gives the company the opportunity to maximise value through the sale of a business which represents a channel for Barclays Global Investors (BGI); and provides Barclays the opportunity to participate in future value creation through a continuing commercial relationship with the iShares business and the potential crystallisation of consideration through a cash-settled participation interest entitling Barclays to receive a portion of the value uplift on iShares if certain performance-related hurdles are met.

Read Complete Article

Tags: barclays, barclays global investors bgi, barclays-global-investors, blue sparkle, board-of-directors, commercial relationship, crystallisation, cvc-capital-partners, future value, hurdles, ishares, limited partnership, participation interest, uplift, value creation