BlackRock is widening access to standardized private markets benchmarks across its Aladdin technology ecosystem, an update the firm says addresses one of the biggest pain points for institutional and wealth clients allocating to alternatives.
The move to expand its Preqin Benchmarks and Indices offering will make reporting-grade indices and customizable peer benchmarks available in a single solution, rather than through separate tools, BlackRock said.
The enhanced product, which gives users a common performance yardstick for performance across private assets, is now accessible to clients across Preqin Pro, Aladdin, eFront and Aladdin Wealth, according to the company's announcement Wednesday. It said the closed-end fund indices behind the update now cover more than 10,000 funds representing upward of $13 trillion in assets, built on daily cash-flow data sourced straight from limited partners.
The broader suite also includes asset-level indices and more than 140,000 peer benchmarks, giving advisors and institutional allocators a wider set of reference points for comparing manager performance, evaluating policy targets and building investment reports.
Unlike public equities and bonds, where index providers have long offered standardized performance measures, private markets data has historically been scattered across disconnected systems. Investors comparing a private equity fund's returns to its peers, or checking a credit strategy against a policy benchmark, have often had to pull data from multiple vendors and reconcile it themselves.
BlackRock is positioning the expanded Preqin suite as a fix for that fragmentation as private allocations grow inside both institutional portfolios and wealth management model portfolios. The firm said the goal is to extend "institutional-quality benchmarking" into advisory and model-portfolio workflows that have not traditionally had access to this level of private markets data.
Kunal Khara, BlackRock's global head of Aladdin product, said combining Preqin's data with BlackRock's technology lets clients connect benchmarking, analysis and reporting within one system and build a whole-portfolio view that spans public and private holdings.
"Clients can access transparent, customizable peer benchmarks and robust, methodology-driven indices, connect analysis and reporting within a single solution, and incorporate private markets into a whole-portfolio view, helping them make more informed and consistent investment decisions," Khara said.
Wednesday's announcement is the latest step in an integration process that included BlackRock's roughly $3.2 billion acquisition of Preqin, which was announced July 2024 and closed the following March. At the time, Preqin served about 48,000 customers from 16 offices and covered private equity, venture capital, hedge funds, infrastructure and real estate data, according to the firm's disclosures following the deal's close.
BlackRock has since folded Preqin's data into other parts of its technology stack. The firm integrated Preqin's private markets data and technology into eFront in February, letting institutional clients manage sourcing, due diligence and post-investment monitoring within a single system.
BlackRock followed that move in the spring with an expansion of Preqin's private credit data inside Aladdin, adding asset-level benchmarks for closed-end funds, business development companies and semi-liquid vehicles, a step aimed at giving advisors a consistent way to compare private credit performance.
For financial advisors specifically, the direct benchmarking access gives Aladdin Wealth clients the ability to tap the same peer-comparison data institutional allocators use, rather than relying on internal spreadsheets or third-party research subscriptions. BlackRock also said the benchmark data will be available through API integrations, letting wealth managers and outside platforms build the figures directly into their own client-facing tools rather than requiring users to log into a separate Preqin interface.
A January survey report by BlackRock found more than half of advisors, including rouhgly three in four wirehouse advisors, now allocate to private assets, but maintain modest exposures amounting to around 7% of portfolios on average.
Concerns about liquidity and a lack of confidence in portfolio construction are holding back adoption, BlackRock found, with 68% of advisors saying they want more education before increasing allocations.
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