{"text":[[{"start":7.44,"text":"BlackRock’s total assets climbed to a record $15.5tn in the third quarter, as the world’s biggest money manager drew in better than expected net inflows of $205bn."}],[{"start":19,"text":"That influx of new money for the three months to September topped Wall Street forecasts, helped by what the group described as “broad-based strength” across its iShares ETFs business, systematic active equities, private markets and cash."}],[{"start":32.6,"text":"BlackRock’s earnings are a barometer for the wider asset management industry, which has been forced to navigate volatile markets in recent months with a rout in US Treasuries coming just as AI optimism has propelled equities higher."}],[{"start":44.92,"text":"“Demand for capital is growing across the global economy,” said chief executive Larry Fink, “and BlackRock is increasingly at the centre of how that capital is deployed and managed.”"}],[{"start":56.04,"text":"BlackRock performed better than analysts had been expecting. Overall revenues climbed almost a fifth from a year earlier to $7.8bn, while the investment giant’s adjusted operating margin — a metric closely watched by Wall Street — expanded by almost 2 percentage points between the second and third quarter, from 45.9 per cent in the second quarter to 47.8 per cent."}],[{"start":78.26,"text":"Net income rose 25 per cent to $1.7bn, while organic base-fee growth, which tracks the rise in management fees BlackRock earns, was 11 per cent, up from 8 per cent in the previous quarter."}],[{"start":91.08,"text":"Although ETFs are often a low-fee business, BlackRock, along with other asset managers, has expanded its range of higher-fee “active ETFs”."}],[{"start":99.6,"text":"These are publicly listed vehicles assembled by portfolio managers, for which it can charge more than those passive ETFs that merely track indices. Active ETFs attracted $22bn of net flows for the quarter, compared with $135bn for iShares overall."}],[{"start":116.2,"text":"Following a months-long sell-off in US government debt, the group’s Investment Institute announced earlier this week that it had upgraded its view on Treasuries."}],[{"start":123.8,"text":"Big investors have turned increasingly positive on Treasuries and have been seeking to lock in potentially juicy fixed returns, with BlackRock’s Investment Institute pointing to “higher yields and potentially excessive Fed tightening expectations”. At the same time, it has downgraded US stocks to neutral."}],[{"start":141.44,"text":"Equities and fixed income flows were lower than the previous quarter, though still better than a year ago. In alternatives, where BlackRock has invested heavily with multibillion-dollar acquisitions of Global Infrastructure Partners and HPS Investment Partners, the company reported flows of $24bn, up from $22bn in the previous quarter and $16bn a year earlier."}],[{"start":163.48,"text":"BlackRock’s shares were up about 5 per cent in pre-market trading. At Tuesday’s close, they were broadly flat year to date."}],[{"start":176.64,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1791983193_9907.mp3"}