BlackRock open to more acquisitions, says Larry Fink

Asset manager's CEO also “not that fearful” about any recession.

BlackRock Inc. Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink said he’s open to more acquisitions, as the world’s largest asset manager increasingly seeks to position itself as a one-stop shop for investors.

“I do see some very large opportunities for inorganic growth,” Fink told Bloomberg Television’s Dani Burger at the Berlin Global Dialogue forum on Friday.

After dominating stocks and debt investing for years, BlackRock — which oversees $9.4 trillion in assets — has been offering not only listed equity-and-bond funds but also private-asset strategies as well as tech, data, analytics and financial markets advice to clients. As part of the push, it announced the purchase of London-based private debt manager in Kreos Capital this year.

Larry Fink during the Berlin Global Dialogue on Sept. 29. Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg

Speaking at the Berlin event, he said he expects 10-year borrowing costs to stay at 5% or higher for some time because of embedded inflation. He added that investors are underestimating how the changes in geopolitics are structurally inflationary.

Fink said he has been telling every business and political leader he meets that they need to help create more “certainty” and “hope,” whose absence creates recession. Some economies are likely to enter recession early, he added, without elaborating.

The US economy may be entering a recession by 2025, he said.

“Whatever recessions we’re going to have are going to be modest, so I’m not that fearful,” he said.