By Frank Adeche www.abijohn.com
No Its NOt owned by Black men
And No This 4 Guys here might not be the Richest men in The World !
Like Seriously ????
Omkar Chitnis Linkedin Report
Oxfam Research -“says that 82% of all earned money in 2017 went to those 1%.”
BlackRock and Vanguard are two of the Big three passive fund asset management firms. The third, State Street, is owned by BlackRock -whose largest shareholder is Vanguard. It seems all roads lead to BlackRock.
All three combined $20 trillion in managed assets is the equivalent of more than half of the combined value of all shares of companies in the S&P 500 (about $38 trillion). And That’s larger than the gross domestic product (GDP) of every single country around the globe, except for China and the United States.
Bloomberg calls BlackRock “The fourth branch of government”, because it’s the only private agency that closely works with the central banks. These firms were right of Federal Reserve which helped in time of 2008 housing crises to clear the mess.
BlackRock and Vanguard AUM is $8.6 & $8.1 trillion, respectively. In total, they both own/invested in 1,600 U.S. companies(Reuters:2022).
Global Financial Markets
BlackRock’s secret weapon, an advanced trading algorithm called Aladdin(Asset, Liability, Debt and Derivative Investment Network) has been shaping global markets for decades.
Aladdin is a program that executes an average of 250,000 trades per day and operates more than $21.6 trillion is assets
Aladdin executes trades in every asset class across every industry and directs the actions of the Federal Reserve and almost every major U.S. bank. It controls over half of all ETFs, 17% of the bond market, and 10% of the stock market.
It collects data points on every market, every company and every asset and uses machine learning to calculate which trades to execute.
The network that makes up Aladdin is approximately 5,000 supercomputers that now act as the central nervous system for the world’s most sophisticated investors and asset managers.
Every major bank and fund has come to rely on Aladdin and its all-powerful AI to beat the market, which raises several fundamental questions about the nature of our fragile financial system.
Food industry
Let’s take PepsiCo as an example, 72% of stock is owned by no less than 3,155 institutional investors. The top 10 of investors together amount to a value of $59 billion dollars, but out of those ten, only BlackRock, Vanguard & State street own more stock than the other seven.
In PepsiCo, Vanguard Group is currently the largest shareholder with 9.29% of shares And in BlackRock with 7.84%.In Coco-cola, Vanguard and BlackRock has 8.51% and 7.19 % respectively.
The other big companies that own a myriad of brand names like Unilever, Mondelez and Nestlé, General Mills, The Hershey, Kraft Heinz and many more are from the same group of investors.
Tech Industry
BlackRock, Vanguard & State street owns the majority of stocks in Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Facebook, AT&T and many, than other institutional investors. Which makes them first mover advantage.
Who is bigger Vanguard or BlackRock?
Vanguard ended 2022 with $5.02 trillion in institutional assets globally, down 7.1% from $5.41 trillion in 2021, while BlackRock ended 2022 with $4.83 trillion in institutional assets, down 15.1% from $5.69 trillion in 2021
Energy Industry
BlackRock has invested $170 billion in U.S. public energy companies (2021) and $85bn investment only in coal companies.
BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard hold $46 billion in debt and equity in oil companies currently operating in the Amazon rainforest.
BlackRock & Vanguard combined holds in 19% of Philips 66, 21% in Valero Energy, 16% in ExxonMobil respectively and many big giants like ConocoPhillips, Occidental Petrol, Chevron corporation, GE…
Overall, the money manager of these firms has nearly $260 billion invested in fossil fuel companies around the world,
Pharma and Health Industry
The Vanguard grp is the largest shareholder in Johnson & Johnson with 8.89 %, Merck & Co with 8.95%. AbbVie with 8.97%, CVS Health with 10%,United health grp with 9%, Sun pharma, GlaxoSmithKline. In down the line, BlackRock holds second-largest shareholder in these companies and many more.
Digital Media
For unilaterally influence bipartisan information flow. “Vanguard and BlackRock are the top two owners of Time Warner, Comcast, Disney and News Corp, four of the six media companies that control more than 90% of the U.S. media landscape,” Together, BlackRock and Vanguard own 18% of Fox, 16% of CBS, 13% of Comcast –which owns NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, The Sky media group, 12% of CNN, and 12% of Disney — which owns a number of subsidiaries…
Apart from the many newspapers and magazines, they also own Sonoma, the parent company of big commercial Dutch channels. Many media outlets from abroad, like VTM, are also owned by the DPG media..
And they own Mediahuis, one of Europe’s biggest media, which works in the Netherlands with its subsidiaries.
And also owns German conglomerate “Bertelsmann”, which is one of the 9 biggest media firms. This company owns RTL, that owns 45 television stations and 32 radio stations in 11 countries. Bertelsmann is also co-owner of the world’s biggest book publisher, Penguin Random House.
Travel industry
Together Vanguard and BlackRock owns 21% of Expedia grp, 15% of Bookings holdings, 27% of American Express,13% of Boeing, 10% of Airbnb ,16% of TripAdvisor and many more.
Hired former government officials
As of 2021, at least three executives from BlackRock operate notable positions in President Joe Biden’s cabinet. Biden appointed BlackRock executive Brian Deese as Head of the National Economic Council, and Adewale Adeyemo, former chief of staff to BlackRock’s chief executive, is the top official at the Treasury Department.
BlackRock lends money to the central bank but it’s also the advisor. It also develops the software the central bank uses. Dozens of BlackRock employees were in the White House with Bush and Obama(Bloomberg Report).
Takeovers:
Both firm that has gobbled up lots of competitors in its path over the years. BlackRock has acquired 21 organizations till date. In 2020, acquired Aperio for approximately $1 billion in cash. In 2019, BlackRock acquired eFront,for $1.3 billion. In 2009, BlackRock acquired Barclays Global Investors in a deal that included Barclays’ iShares ETF business. And the firm acquired Merrill Lynch Investment Managers.
NGO’s
According to the website of the World Economic Forum, the Gates Foundation is the biggest sponsor of the WHO. That was after Donald Trump quit USA financial support to the WHO in 2020. The Gates Foundation works closely with the biggest pharma companies among which are Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Bayer etc.
And we have just read who their biggest shareholders are.Highest shareholder of Microsoft & Berkshire Hathaway is owned by Vanguard, BlackRock and state street corp. And even bill gate is the board member in those groups.
These businesses are interlinked in a loop. To build a bridge between businesses, politicians, and the media, and to reduce corporate taxes by redirecting revenue to non-profit organizations, This conceals the conflicts of interests a bit.
Conclusion:
Data indicates that both companies have substantial first-mover advantages in all prominent businesses in various sectors.In turn, they, themselves are owned by shareholders and the most surprising thing is that they own each other’s stocks (Black rock holds 14.5% in Vanguard grp, whereas Vanguard holds 9% in Black rock)
Together, they form an immense network comparable to a pyramid. The smaller investors are owned by larger investors. Those are owned by even bigger investors.
The visible top of this pyramid shows only two companies whose names we have often seen by now. They are Vanguard and BlackRock.
The power of these two companies is beyond your imagination.
Source:
Bloomberg.com/Markets,Reuters,Yahoo finance, Worldbank.org, Koyfin.com
BlackRock is not owned by a single individual or company. Instead, its shares are owned by a large number of individual and institutional investors. The biggest institutional shareholders such as The Vanguard Group and State Street are merely custodians of the stock for their clients.
Top 10 Owners of American Vanguard Corp
Stockholder Stake Shares owned Total value ($) Shares bought / sold Total change
BlackRock Fund Advisors 13.90% 4,088,102 69,743,020 -123,771 -2.94%
Dimensional Fund Advisors LP 8.37% 2,461,571 41,994,401 +66 +0.00%
The Vanguard Group, Inc. 6.99% 2,056,962 35,091,772 +149,860 +7.86%
Wellington Management Co. LLP 4.98% 1,463,987 24,975,618 +34,783 +2.43%
SSgA Funds Management, Inc. 3.84% 1,129,483 19,268,980 -25,211 -2.18%
Cruiser Capital Advisors LLC 3.76% 1,104,883 18,849,304 +115,031 +11.62%
Congress Asset Management Co. LLP 3.09% 908,394 15,497,202 +115,874 +14.62%
Janus Henderson Investors US LLC 2.77% 814,907 13,902,313 -12 -0.00%
Heartland Advisors, Inc. 2.27% 666,335 11,367,675 -48,519 -6.79%
Geode Capital Management LLC 1.78% 522,890 8,920,503 +12,278 +2.40%
Who are the shareholders of BlackRock?
According to the data from WallStreetZen as of 13 April, 61.87% of BLK shares were owned by institutional investors. This means that over half of the Blackrock Inc shareholders were investment firms and asset managers, similar to BlackRock, which hold shares on behalf of their clients.
All BLK shares have voting rights, meaning that shareholders of BlackRock have a say in the company’s affairs in line with the proportion of ownership they hold in the firm.
In most cases, individuals who buy BlackRock stock via brokers appoint them as a proxy, meaning that the broker can vote on their behalf. However, they can also opt to cast a vote on the company’s key decisions at BlackRock shareholders meetings.
Institutional BlackRock shareholders
The following is a list of BlackRock major shareholders, according to data compiled by WallStreetZen as of 6 March.
The Vanguard Group – 9.04%
The Vanguard Group is a US-based asset management firm that oversees more than $8tn in assets for both individual and institutional investors. This financial services firm may own BlackRock (BLK) stock through its various investment vehicles, including exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and mutual funds.
State Street Corp – 4.21%
State Street (STT) is one of the most successful financial services companies in the US. The asset management firm overlooks assets worth over $4tn. It is one of the biggest BlackRock shareholders.
Bank of America – 3.45%
Bank of America (BAC) or BofA is the second biggest bank in the US after JP Morgan (JPM), and one of the country’s Big Four banks, founded in 1923. BofA’s investment management arm BofA Securities would likely be the bank’s division holding BlackRocks stock on behalf of clients.
Temasek is the investment arm of the Singaporean government. The company is managed by the nation’s Minister of Finance. Temasek invests the majority of its assets in Singapore, China and the Americas, including the US. The fund is a major shareholder of Blackrock.
Charles Schwab Investment Management – 2.22%
Charles Schwab (SCHW) offers investment management and advisory services, mainly in the US and the UK. It was established in 1971 and named after its founder, an American investor Charles Robert Schwab.
BlackRock major shareholders among insiders
Another data collector GuruFocus estimated that insiders owned 3.02% of all outstanding common shares of BlackRock at the time of writing. These shares are granted to insiders by the company via stock options as part of their compensation package, or they could have been bought back when the firm was founded.
The following individuals were considered BlackRock biggest shareholders among the company’s insiders, as of 6 March:
Laurence D. Fink – 520,124 shares
Laurence D. Fink is the CEO and co-founder of BlackRock. Along with seven colleagues, he started the company. As of 31 January 2023, he owned 520,126 making him the biggest individual shareholder.
Before founding BlackRock, Fink was Management Director of the First Boston Corporation, an investment bank that was later acquired by Credit Suisse (CS).
Susan L. Wagner – 429,362 shares
Susan Wagner is a former executive and one of the co-founders of BlackRock. She occupied the position of Vice Chairman of the asset management firm until 2012. She has served as COO and Head of Corporate Strategy.
As of 17 January 2023, Susan owned 429,362 shares of Blackrock, making her the second largest shareholder.
Robert S. Kapito – 210,104 shares
Rob Kapito is the president of Blackrock, head of the Global Operating Committee and a member of the company’s Global Executive Committee. Kapito is also a founding member.
Kapito owned 210,104 shares of BLK as of 31 January 2023, over twice less than Wagner.
Other insider holdings
Data from WallStreetZen also indicated that an investment firm Merrill Lynch and BlackRock itself were among the biggest shareholders of BlackRock.
BlackRock acquired Merril Lynch in 2006 in an effort to expand its retail and international presence. Meanwhile, it’s likely that BlackRock holds its own stocks in its investment packages on behalf of clients.
Merrill Lynch owned 44.68% of BlackRock stock, while BlackRock itself held 6.96% of its own stock, as of 13 April.
The bottom line
Knowing those who own the most shares of BlackRock stock can help in understanding the company’s objectives. Big investors can have influence over the company.
However, it should not be the key reason for your decision to buy a stock. Whether BlacRock is a good investment should depend on your investment goals, risk tolerance and the size of your portfolio. It is important to do your own research before making any investment or trading decision. And never invest or trade money that you cannot afford to lose.
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