BlackRock Inc., the world’s biggest asset manager, named Rich Kushel as head of portfolio management and Charles Hallac as chief operating officer, reshaping its leadership team after the purchase of Barclays Global Investors.
Kushel, the former head of international businesses, will be responsible for investment management and information sharing in the newly created position, according to a memo today to employees, a copy of which was obtained by Bloomberg News. Hallac, most recently co-COO, will be responsible for operating efficiency the company said.
BlackRock said it was changing its organizational structure, creating three regional units for the Americas, Asia Pacific, as well as Europe, the Middle East and Africa. James Charrington will lead the EMEA region, subject to regulatory approvals, and Rohit Bhagat will oversee the Asia Pacific unit, the company said.
The Dec. 1 purchase of BGI more than doubled New York-based BlackRock’s assets to $3.4 trillion, adding index and exchange- traded funds to the firm’s mix of actively managed stock, bond and money-market products.
BlackRock last week named Mike Latham the global head of its iShares ETF unit as part of the reorganization, aimed at improving the firm’s worldwide reach. Rory Tobin, the former head of the iShares international business, left the company.
“We are strengthening the role of regional and country heads to create additional focus on each of these markets,” the firm said in today’s memo.
Executive Team
BlackRock said firm functions will continue to be split among three groups, portfolio management, operations and the global client team, which is led by Robert Fairbairn.
Hallac previously shared the COO position with Sue Wagner, who was named to a five-member executive team led by Chief Executive Officer Laurence D. Fink and President Robert Kapito. Blake Grossman, the former chief of the Barclays’s investment unit, and Kendrick Wilson III, an ex-Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker, also were appointed to the team.
Bobbie Collins, a spokeswoman for BlackRock, confirmed the memo’s authenticity.
BlackRock, co-founded in 1988 by Fink, began as a fixed- income firm. In 2006, it expanded its equity business with the purchase of Merrill Lynch & Co.’s money-management unit. In 2008,
BlackRock acquired a division of Quellos Group LLC to add hedge-fund assets. The $15.2 billion purchase of BGI, the biggest seller of index-tracking ETFs, was its largest takeover.
The firm now has about 12 percent of its assets in mutual funds aimed at individuals, 15 percent in ETFs and the majority in institutional products.
