Talk:BlackRock/Archive 1

Alternative
I was doing some Disambiguation link repair - You can help! and noticed Alternative Links to a disambiguation page. I can't quite find the aproriate link for it. Alternative Investment Market is the closest i can find but it is in London and this artile is in the USA. I'm Just going to remove the link. Please fix it if you know where to link it. (The title says Rock and i was about to link it to Alternative rock but this isn't about music)--E-Bod 15:09, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

% ownership
The BlackRock about us page (which is linked at [2]) notes:

Our firm’s ownership structure is designed to maintain the independence we believe is necessary to retain our commitments to client focus and investment excellence. BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE: BLK) has no single majority stockholder and has a majority of independent directors. Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bank of America Corporation, The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. and Barclays PLC own economic interests in BlackRock approximating 34.1%, 24.6% and 19.9%, respectively, with the remainder owned by institutional and individual investors, as well as BlackRock employees.

This is as of 09.30.09, prior to the Barclays merger in December. The percentages currently in the article are consistent with 2008. They have obviously changed since 2008 but then changed again due to the December merger, thus they should probably be revised. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nemo728 (talk • contribs) 22:43, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

BlackRock Headquarter
Is actually Park Avenue Plaza, not 40 East 52nd Street  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.108.234.73 (talk) 12:34, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Name
I removed the part about BlackRock changing its name to BlackRock Global Investors because that is no longer true. The combined firm will be just be named BlackRock. (this comment from the Barclays Global Investors talk page, now a redirect)Mercurywoodrose (talk) 16:52, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Article Needs to be Rewritten
Is this supposed to be a public relations portal? Stevenmitchell (talk) 07:56, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Total agreement. This article speaks volumes about those hiding behind the curtains.Wikipietime (talk) 12:49, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

This is a concern. --Crustalmech (talk) 15:13, 10 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I have rewritten to remove the company POV and suggest that the neutrality tag be re-evaluated. However I reject the comments on this talk page which IMO wish to see it turned into an anti-capitalist conspiracy piece Chrismorey (talk) 21:34, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

BlackRock Information Missing
I am just posting this for future readers/editors to note that, as important as this firm is to the liquidation of investment assets by Wall Street firms as of 2009, there is very little mentioned here about their role. BlackRock is a private firm - by the way owned by Bank of America through a Merrill Lynch purchase (again not mentioned in article) - that went into bankruptcy reorganization last year during the Lehman Brothers fiasco (also not mentioned in the article) and emerged earlier this year... It may be that much of this article is written by folks who work for BlackRock so they would rather keep the non-public relations stuff private. So much for the era of full disclosure - if you know anything about Wall Street, if something is out in the open it no longer is considered an opportunity... Anyway, there needs to more updated information added to this article so that it can present a more balanced perspective of the financial company and its role in the economic recovery. As it stands right now, it is simply an article created and aimed at potential investors and customers - hardly the target-base of the Wikipedia audience... Stevenmitchell (talk) 02:05, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Steve, that's because the information you have about BLK is wrong. It is not a private firm, not owned by Bank of America, nor owned by Merill Lynch. And no, I don't work for BLK. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.92.23.61 (talk) 19:24, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Steve, BLK went public in 1999 at $14.00/share. Please stop writing about companies you don't know anything about. If your objective is full disclosure, you need knowledge. And I don't WORK for BLK. I work on the street and have for 20 years. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wallstreetguy (talk • contribs) 23:09, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

The Global Client and BlackRock Solutions sections
These sections seem like they were written by people associated with or employed by BlackRock and don't follow Wikipedia's formatting at all. Does anyone else agree? I propose that both of these sections are either altered or deleted entirely as they add very little to the article. Wikipediarul e s 2221 22:59, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

There isn't any section. Where is it??? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wallstreetguy (talk • contribs) 23:10, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Incomplete tag added
As per the article expansion request above, an Incomplete tag has been added to the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by EyeOnMarkets (talk • contribs) 16:37, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Schwarzman
The surname appears without a firstname. I thought we only did that for musicians, like Cher, Bono and Madonna. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:32b2:d420:e885:7349:9fd8:bb98 (talk) 12:26, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Promo Lingo
Just removed some blatantly peacock promotional/PR language from the History section. Clear violation of WP:PROMO. Not having an inline citation to work with, I interpreted the peacock talk into more down to earth language. If anyone can do it better in the same spirit/intention, please do. I'm also intending to tag the article as not having enough inline citations, especially for the History section. Tapered (talk) 21:12, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree, the History section needs far more inline citiations for support. If I can find the time, I'll go through and try and find reliable sources. Meatsgains (talk) 22:41, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm actually having a tough time finding sources verifying the content in the History section. While I don't necessarily think we should remove it, we may have to cut it back some until we can find references. Thoughts? Meatsgains (talk) 23:12, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Article needs major expansion
From cover article in The Economist, noting it is "easily the biggest investor in the world", it is clear that BlackRock matters. As well as its $4.1 trillion of directly controlled assets (almost as much as all private-equity and hedge funds put together)(already mentioned) it oversees another $11 trillion through its trading platform, Aladdin (needs own article?), we are told - together giving it control over around 7% of all the shares, bonds and loans in the world. Also, let's say that the helping the US government in 2008-09 was after and because of the financial crisis. Much material from these sources but I don't feel qualified to mess with the lead. Moreover, it seems to be hardly mentioned in other WP articles. This needs to be embedded in places it links to, starting with the firms it holds significant stakes in. Onanoff (talk) 17:16, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

A chart outlining what are the major shareholdings of BlackRock, available in the Economist issue, and who actually owns it would help. Matters are a bit confusing, it is a major shareholder in its major shareholder (Bank of America), to put it mildly. In addition, there needs to be a discussion on how and under what conditions the firm allows others to use its Aladdin platform. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.12.203.30 (talk) 10:47, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Aladdin, is part of BLK. Wall Street Guy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wallstreetguy (talk • contribs) 23:53, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

The points made in the OP here by Onanoff are still true, over 3 years later! Boscaswell  talk  19:59, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20161015182327/https://www.blackrock.com/corporate/en-us/about-us to http://www.blackrock.com/corporate/en-us/about-us
 * Corrected formatting/usage for https://www.pnc.com/webapp/unsec/NCProductsAndService.do?siteArea=%2Fpnccorp%2FPNC%2FHome%2FAbout%20PNC%2FOur%20Organization%2FCorporate%20History
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20121026050853/http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9M964IO0.htm to http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9M964IO0.htm

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Requested edit
FutureAdvisor employee here, so requesting an edit here to stay in line with WP:DISCLOSURE. The AUM figure is pretty old and, at the time of the acquisition, is off by a factor of 3. Could someone change the last sentence in BlackRock to:

On August 26, 2015, BlackRock entered into a definitive agreement to acquire FutureAdvisor, a digital wealth management provider with reported assets under management of over $600 million.

142.254.23.146 (talk) 19:11, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
 * ✅ Altamel (talk) 17:40, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

History section
I have recently made some changes to the History section. Here's a summary: Wildfowl (talk) 18:50, 27 May 2017 (UTC)
 * removed what appeared to be an ad
 * removed superflous bit of text
 * removed stuff with inaccessible citation
 * unburied Burrows text
 * removed uncited sentence
 * removed spurious sentence with spurious citation
 * removed spurious text
 * I took a glance at your edits, I think they look good. Benji the Pen (talk) 15:09, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 2 one external links on BlackRock. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20120517183033/https://www.pnc.com/webapp/unsec/NCProductsAndService.do?siteArea=/pnccorp/PNC/Home/About+PNC/Our+Organization/Corporate+History to https://www.pnc.com/webapp/unsec/NCProductsAndService.do?siteArea=/pnccorp/PNC/Home/About+PNC/Our+Organization/Corporate+History
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20141022072348/http://www.ouvriersbtp.fr/public/blogs?page=321 to http://www.ouvriersbtp.fr/public/blogs?page=321

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Article *still* needs major expansion!
Some three years after Onanoff told everyone why. BlackRock is massive, as in *massive*. Boscaswell  talk  20:01, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

The German page lists their activities there and what looks like market/stock market dominance. Elsewhere I read that the illfated purchase of monsanto by bayer came through BlackRock who held shares in both. When bayer goes bankrupt through the monsanto court cases, the German taxpayer is likely to bail them out like Grünenthal (Thalidomide). 2001:8003:AC60:1400:F8D9:A473:A12E:6044 (talk) 06:11, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes men hoax
I see no wp:rs for this section. The only references given is the yes men website. No third parties establishing any notability. So I have deleted the section. Please give reliable sources establishing notability if you feel it should be included.---- Work permit (talk) 03:56, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
 * It's pretty easy to find lots of coverage in reliable sources: The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Telegraph, NY Post, Wired Italy. I'll rewrite the paragraph from these sources. The Mirror Cracked (talk) 04:07, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks, much appreciate you adding real sources. Cheers---- Work permit (talk) 09:12, 18 September 2019 (UTC)


 * The fact that this "hoax letter" is covered in reliable sources is not enough to justify inclusion on Blackrock's page. May be worth a mentioning on The Yes Men's page but it does not belong here. Blackrock was in no way connected, so how is this relevant? Meatsgains (talk) 17:52, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
 * I disagree. It is connected to BlackRock, since it directly satirises the company. That's like saying a newspaper report isn't connected to the ubject of the report, because the subject didn't write it, surely? The Mirror Cracked (talk) 04:12, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
 * I see your point however, as you noted, its satire. If Blackrock was somehow directly involved, I'd support including the information but that's not the case. Using your analogy, it would be like a newspaper reporting on actions of the subject, which never actually took place. Meatsgains (talk) 17:28, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Should provide the citation
Somebody really needs to provide the citation of total assets. I have the link, though. Ayush6568 (talk) 13:50, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/BLK/blackrock/total-assets

That is the link. Somebody please make the citation. Ayush6568 (talk) 13:51, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1364742/000156459021001137/blk-ex991_6.htm

This is the link. Please any one can make the citation.

I am a learner GO CAT GO GREEN

User:GuillermoAlonsoMartínezEspinoza (talk)  13:32, 21 January 2021 (UTC)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Guillermo Alonso Martínez Espinoza (talk • contribs)

Paid Editing
This article is rampant with suspicious edits, one calls it a "Dominator of Corporate America", they call the founders "Pioneers", discuss "Fink's Vision" and "That experience was the motivation to develop what he and the others considered to be excellent risk management and fiduciary practices." These were all in the first paragraph, and probably weren't all the occurrences their either. I honestly believe that the best solution is reverting it to the version before the edits were made, but it may have been too long. Are there and methods that are used to repair these articles? Thanks, JazzClam (talk) 15:46, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Regarding the pioneer claim, please note that it's referring to mortgage backed securities, which is a negative claim, as this asset starred in the 2008 Subprime mortgage crisis. Regarding the "Domination of Corporate America", you can change the wording to something more neutral and fact based like "it's considered one of the big three asset managers, together holding almost half of the stock market", but it's still rather true.

I didn't find the origin of the pioneering claim, but I found an edit that fixed the promotional state of the article in 2014. Considering that this 2014 editor and me already reviewed the claims you brought up, I'm removing the template, but please feel free to reinstate it if you can point additional examples that might indicate recent paid editing. If you suspect the paid editing happened a long time ago, consider that they have already been reviewed, unless it's an obscure section, in which case please place the template at the appropriate section. Also consider adding the more generic npov template, which has a lighter burden of proof.--TZubiri (talk) 02:13, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Key people
Needs updating. Deese is now in Biden’s govt. Boscaswell  talk  09:06, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Paywalled sources
Can an archived copy be provided for these sources 112, 113? They're paywalled.


 * [112] Richard Henderson and Robin Wigglesworth. Fed's big boost for BlackRock raises eyebrows on Wall Street, Financial Times, March 27, 2020
 * [113] Richard Henderson and Robin Wigglesworth. BlackRock's growing clout carries risks for asset manager: Group faces increased scrutiny as central banks ask it to help run stimulus packages, Financial Times, April 30, 2020

Thanks. --Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 00:42, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
 * - if you have a non-copyright-violating archive copy, you could supply it as a courtesy URL.  — jmcgnh (talk)  (contribs) 01:11, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Would a copy at web.archive.org, if available, pass copyright? Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 07:07, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
 * - Most likely, it is in some sense a copyright violation, but if the copyright holder has not exercised their right to have the copied item removed from the archive, should we take that as some sort of shadow license? It's easier to answer in some cases, such as where a published journal article behind a paywall is also made available by the author on their own web site. When it's unclear, I think it's better to simply mark the source with the appropriate access indicator Template:Cite news than to run the risk of exposing Wikipedia to a copyright violation. Yes, I'm a coward about things like that.  — jmcgnh (talk) (contribs) 07:38, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
 * - really motivated readers may find that searching for the title of the article will lead them to non-subscription copies. I found the first item on a site named thakoni.com. I think the same precautionary principle would argue against linking to it instead of the FT original.  — jmcgnh (talk) (contribs) 07:45, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Schwarzman in History
His name appears in para. 2, in way in which the reader is expected to know who he is. But there's no mention of him before this. Boscaswell  talk  23:33, 11 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Yeah that is confusing. Later in that paragraph: "In 1994, Blackstone Group's Stephen A. Schwarzman and Fink had an internal dispute over methods of compensation and equity." I'll see if I can clarify this. Marquardtika (talk) 02:34, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 7 September 2021 and 23 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jmcn24. Peer reviewers: Ekscherber, Migratingthoughts.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 15:55, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Angling to influence a Biden administration
in June 2020 ? 184.171.141.56 (talk) 21:46, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Woke company in summary
The summary part of the page seems to be adding information to the firm that would be better served in a controversy sub section. It could be misconstrued that the general public consensus is that people think this is a "woke" company, which requires explanation. The summary narrative appears to have agenda when describing a investment firm. Does Goldman Sachs read like this? 2601:1C0:8500:9BA0:98E3:A6CC:63BB:AFA4 (talk) 13:13, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Edit request
I'm proposing the following edits. I work for Blackrock, Inc., and I have declared my conflict of interest on my Userpage as well as above. I will not edit the page myself and will instead put forward edit requests for independent editors to review.

I'm submitting these edits to correct inaccuracies and provide additional details to several items, and have provided related sourcing for review.

Please let me know of any questions or comments. Thanks for your time and consideration.

1. Please remove 52nd Street Capital Advisors LLC from the Subsidiaries list in the Infobox, as it is no longer a subsidiary, per information submitted to the SEC February 25, 2022: https://fintel.io/doc/sec-blackrock-inc-1364742-ex211-2022-february-25-19048-1188

2. Could the paragraph about the train-fare-dodging Jonathan Burrows be removed from the subsection "2010–2019"? An example of recentism, this item has nothing to do with BlackRock per se or any work the person did for or at or while at BlackRock, and it was added by a now-banned editor the same day the news article(s) appeared:. (Here are the two current citations, one of which is archive-only now: .)

3. Could the following cited information be added to the article, after the first paragraph of the "Ownership and transparency" section?:

In October 2021 BlackRock launched its Voting Choice program, which enables institutional clients invested in index funds to participate in shareholder voting, and expanded it in June 2022 so that 47% of its equity index assets are covered by the program. Under the program, eligible institutional clients can either vote all issues, vote only on issues that matter to them, select from 14 different voting policies, or allow BlackRock's investment stewardship team to vote for them. BlackRock Investment Stewardship is a team of approximately 70 analysts who engage with the boards and management teams of companies, and vote shares, for the benefit of its passive non-voting investor clients; as of 2022 its top priority issues are board quality, strategy and financial resilience, executive compensation, climate, and human-resource issues.

Thank you for taking the time to review these requests. KM2BR (talk) 19:35, 1 March 2023 (UTC)


 * The article has changed since your original edit request. Therefore, I only implemented the second proposed change. Best regards, --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 18:59, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Edit request 2
Hi, I work for BlackRock, Inc., and I have declared my conflict of interest on my userpage as well as above. I would like to request the following edits to this article:

1. The "Cross ownership" subsection [added three years ago by this editor: ]: The first sentence is completely uncited, and the citations for the second sentence do not mention BlackRock at all (not even in the PDF study mentioned in the first citation). Could this two-sentence subsection be removed (unless or until it is properly cited)?

2. "Key people" section (board of directors):
 * Please change the first sentence to "As of 2023, Blackrock has a 16-person board of directors. "
 * Per the new citation (the current BoD list on the BlackRock site), delete:
 * Jessica P. Einhorn
 * Beth Ford
 * Carlos Slim Domit
 * And add:
 * Marco Antonio Slim Domit (alphabetically after Charles H. Robbins; the surname is "Slim Domit").

Thank you in advance for your time and any assistance. KM2BR (talk) 22:28, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Xan747 (talk) 23:17, 6 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi,, and thanks very much for implementing item #2. I have re-opened this edit request, since item #1 was neither implemented nor addressed. Could you please look at #1? Thank you kindly, KM2BR (talk) 02:30, 7 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Yes check.svg Done . Sorry I missed that the first time; it definitely needed to go. Regards, Xan747 (talk) 02:36, 7 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Excellent, I'm glad it was simply an oversight. Many thanks for your help. KM2BR (talk) 02:38, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Dominate corporate America?
The first para says that Blackstone is one of three index funds that "dominate corporate America." They do nothing of the sort. They are the largest shareholders of many American companies, but the share of each company they hold is a small minority and is in no way dominant. They basically do not influence the companies' behavior at all. They are index funds (passive managers) and simply hold shares as per contract with the index funds' investors. They have no discretion over whether to hold the shares and cannot sell them except to raise cash for redemption requests by the fund investors.

The wording I'd suggest in place of "dominate corporate America" is "are the largest shareholders of many large American companies." Whoever is the primary force behind this page, please make the change. As a casual user I'd rather not. 24.13.83.67 (talk) 10:04, 2 November 2020 (UTC)Larry Siegel


 * As Corporate managers who do not obey the "advice" of BlackRock, on pushing leftist policies such as ESG and DEI, tend to find themselves forced to resign - "dominate corporate America" is fair wording. 2A02:C7C:E085:8D00:4D78:9EAE:5775:81C9 (talk) 12:46, 5 March 2023 (UTC)
 * That honestly needs more citations, you make it sound like it's the explicit agenda. Is that what fox news says the company is about or what the company has actually done, either way for something that could be weasel words, it needs strong citations 2601:1C0:8500:9BA0:98E3:A6CC:63BB:AFA4 (talk) 13:18, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Sorry, your opinion has been suppressed. We value gentle lies. 2804:4FFC:40D:9D00:F9C9:98D0:D496:30 (talk) 15:40, 21 August 2023 (UTC)