Tag Archives: Larry Fink

Rich get Richer while “the Others” Hit the Floor

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The potential for capital markets to expand prosperity is the theme of 72-year-old Fink’s latest annual letter to shareholders, which touches on topics ranging from retirement policy to building out the electrical grid. He details two approaches to broadening access: helping current investors reach parts of the market previously restricted to them, and enabling more people to become investors in the first place.

“The country focuses heavily on preventing people from hitting the floor, as we should. But the U.S. needs to put just as much effort into helping people climb to the ceiling—through investing,” Fink wrote….“Assets that will define the future—data centers, ports, power grids, the world’s fastest-growing private companies—aren’t available to most investors,” he wrote. “They’re in private markets, locked behind high walls, with gates that open only for the wealthiest or largest market participants.”

Excerpt from Jack Pitcher, Larry Fink Says Regular Americans Need Private Assets Too, WSJ, Mar. 31, 2025

The Curious Case of Larry Fink, BlackRock: He Stays, They Go

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Few private citizens wield more power in America today than Larry Fink, the chief executive of BlackRock in pushing companies to embrace climate-friendly policies, that has made him a lightning rod. The firm he runs manages some $10 trillion for pension funds, endowments, governments, companies and individuals, equal to more than 10% of the world’s gross domestic product in 2020. As steward for millions of investors, BlackRock wields vast shareholder voting power, which it uses either to back managements or to prod them in new directions.

Today, Mr. Fink is telling CEOs that companies must prepare for a scale back of fossil fuels, and that the private sector should work with governments to do so. He warns of the disruption climate change could cause both the economy and financial markets, but sees historic investment opportunity in the energy shift. It’s a point he has made to conferences in Davos, Venice, Riyadh and Glasgow over the past year. Mr. Fink’s power, combined with his advocacy on a hot-button issue, has made him a flashpoint for activists, politicians and unions, both those who think BlackRock isn’t doing enough and others who say it’s doing too much…

U.S. government officials have called on Mr. Fink to help them cope with crises—the pandemic-rattled financial markets in March 2020, and, during the 2008 financial meltdown. “Treasury Secretaries and finance ministers come and go,” said David Rubenstein, the co-founder of the private-equity firm Carlyle Group Inc. “They work for someone else who can fire them tomorrow and have to build what others want them to. When you are the CEO of the biggest asset manager, you don’t have to do that.”

Excerpts from Dawn Lim Follow, Larry Fink Wants to Save the World (and Make Money Doing It), Jan. 6, 2022