Distinguished for his decision-making ability, Larry Fink is today one of the most powerful billionaires in the United States and the world, thanks to the empire he has achieved with BlackRock, the world’s largest investment fund, where Assets for about $8 trillion dollars are managed, being the most powerful consortium that nobody knows about.
Fink founded this company in 1988 and since then has been known for his aggressive expansion plans, while helping the company receive widespread recognition for its financial analysis.
“Companies that pursue business practices that make sense in the short term may be undermining their own viability in the long term.”
Larry D. Fink has become a person that everyone listens to in the world because the decisions he makes have a direct impact on the stability of the markets and redirect the international economy.
A particular characteristic of Fink’s leadership is sending written messages to big businessmen in order to propose his ideas, such as what happened when he sent letters to executives of the main companies listed in the United States and Europe, proposing to improve the management of their companies when considering the international context after the emergence of Brexit.
“One of the key elements of human behavior is that humans are more afraid of losing than they are of enjoying success.”
During the more than three decades of BlackRock’s existence, Fink has remained at the head of the company and participated in important world events, such as the “junk mortgage” crisis of 2007, a situation in which he played an important role as mediator between Washington and Wall Street; as well as the management of toxic assets of the investment bank Bear Stearns.
Larry Fink has a vision of the world that has allowed him to excel in the venture capital business, to such a level that only one fall is publicly known, which happened at the beginning of his career, when he worked at First Boston.
Likewise, BlackRock has had assets in 15 large “unicorns”, such as Uber, Dropbox and Coupang, with the majority of its US portfolio companies being startups.
Larry D. Fink
Who is Larry Fink? Biography and history of his empire
Laurence “Larry” Douglas Fink, was born on November 2, 1952 in Los Angeles, California; within a Jewish family, the son of a mother who was an English teacher and a father who owned a shoe store.
In 1974 he earned his BA in Political Science from the University of California and two years later he earned his Master of Business Administration from the Anderson School of Management.
Immediately after earning his MBA, Fink went to work at First Boston, a large investment bank located in New York. He succeeded there in taking charge of the bond department, where he was instrumental in the creation and development of the mortgage-backed security market in the United States.
During his first 10 years, he demonstrated great success, managing to enter $100 million dollars in the company’s results and being part of the Administration Committee, Managing Director, Co-director of the Taxable Fixed Income Division, created the Options Department and Financial Futures; and became Director of the Mortgage and Real Estate Products Group.
For the year 1986 Larry would suffer his biggest fall to date, with the multi-million dollar loss generated by a bad bet on the evolution of interest rates. Suddenly becomes persona non grata in the company and signifying his departure from it.
This situation became a turning point for Larry who swore to himself that from then on he would focus on understanding at all times the risks he would assume with his investments.
Together with seven partners, and under the guidance of Blackstone, in 1988 he founded BlackRock, a specialized manager in fixed income at the beginning; within this new company, he became its Director and CEO. In 1994 BlackRock parted ways with Blackstone, but Fink kept the charges on him.
From this moment on, and under his leadership, the firm has become a world leader in investment solutions and technology to help investors build better financial futures.
In 1999 BlackRock went public on the New York Stock Exchange while managing $165 billion in assets.
Larry Fink spearheaded BlackRock’s first major acquisition with the purchase of State Street Research & Management holding company SSRM Holding, Inc. from MetLife in a transaction that brought in $325 million in cash and $50 million in Actions. This acquisition raised BlackRock’s assets under management from $314 billion to $325 billion.
In 2005-2005 BlackRock acquired funds from State Street Research & Management, merged with Merrill Lynch Investment Managers, cut ownership of PNC in half, gave Merryll Lynch a 49.5% stake in the company, and acquired Quellos Capital Management.
The world would be shaken in 2007 by the explosion of the “junk mortgage” crisis, where Fink served as a mediator between Washington and Wall Street, in the midst of the process of bailing out the banks.
This moment in life put Fink in everyone’s sights, despite having already been working in the financial world for many years, until now his name came up; triggering that in 2009 BlackRock became the first asset manager in the world, with the purchase of Barclays Global Investors.
Fink has enabled BlackRock to go public with a market capitalization of more than $60 billion and 12,000 employees spread across 30 countries. Counting on clients that are large institutional investors, the main public and private pension funds; and sovereign wealth funds.
His actions have allowed him to be classified as an oracle and given the nickname ” Mr. Fix-it “, as he is the person who is called to solve the problems of the financial market.
Aside from his passion for finances, Fink has shown that he has a goal to give back to his community. She has a chair on the boards of New York University and another at the Museum of Modern Art.
The Robin Hood Foundation, which works to reduce poverty in the city, is involved, given the comment that one of the consequences of the 2007 crisis was the increase in inequality.
During 2017, his salary amounted to $28 million, an increase that was almost 10% compared to a year earlier and 195 times the average compensation of the world’s largest asset manager.
In this same time period, Fink became an ally of the newly appointed President of the United States, Donald Trump. Being part of the White House business advisory councils, but in August 2017 this alliance suffered a breakdown when Larry and other directors of large companies announced that they would leave the councils, this as a sign of protest against the comments made by the president about the acts of violence that occurred in Charlottesville, Virginia.
He married Lori Fink in the mid-1970s, with whom he has 3 children and they live in Manhattan, New York.
Currently, Larry Fink has a fortune valued at $1 billion dollars, according to Forbes magazine.
