BlackRock
What BlackRock is up to now
Stopped just holding and started owning the buildout: GIP closed the $40B Aligned acquisition (with MGX/AIP), ran the $12.5B El Paso bond for Meta (soft demand, then upsized — the live test of AI-debt appetite), and sits adjacent to Blue Owl's 80% of Hyperion. The $14T AUM stays locked client money; the power move is the alternatives arm converting fiduciary scale into physical-infrastructure ownership. Aladdin remains the systemic footprint nobody prices.
as of 2026-07-28
Sphere us
Pocket
Capital
The board's sharpest commands-vs-owns case, and the axis model's proof: a pure capitalization actor whose gravity is negligible. Under-threaded — a candidate for a dedicated power-position thread.
The metrics
- Posture high
- expanding 2 src →
- Capital · available high
- own corporate cash ~$9.8B (Q1-2026); free/deployable treasury ~$10B — ~0.06% of what it commands 1 src →
- Capital · operating high
- fee revenue ~$27.3B TTM ($24.2B FY25, $20.4B FY24); net income ~$6.58B TTM 2 src →
- Capital · deployed high
- AUM directed ~$15.3T (Q2-2026); ~64% index-passive (iShares $3.5T + institutional index $2.9T of the FY23 $10.0T book) 2 src →
- Capital · in med
- AUM grew $10.0T -> $15.3T (2023->2026) via record net inflows + acquisitions (GIP ~$100B AUM 2024, HPS ~$150B+ private credit 2025); Q2-2026 record net inflows 2 src →
- Capital · out high
- capital returned to holders — dividend ~$22.92/yr per share (~$3.5B/yr) + buybacks; plus M&A cash for deployments (GIP/HPS, multi-$B) 2 src →
- Optionality high
- constrained — AUM is fiduciary/benchmark-bound (~64% index-passive); free corporate cash ~$10B is ~0.06% of what it commands 1 src →
- Gravity med
- thin — Aladdin monitors ~$21.6T assets (2020, a STOCK not a flow); Tech Services rev ~$1.5B/yr (FY23) is the value captured. Gravity << capitalization by ~4 orders. 2 src →
This week — what changed
- Meta + BlackRock formalized an $14B El Paso JV (80/20, off-balance-sheet) the day before Meta's earnings — the second use of the template; BlackRock also completed a $12.5B Meta bond. (Meta · CNBC)
- Meta + BlackRock: $14B El Paso JV (80/20, off-balance-sheet) + a completed $12.5B Meta bond — the day before Meta's print.
- FEC monthlies (F3X, through 06-30) filed 07-20: Oracle PAC · Micron PAC · Highmark PAC · BlackRock PAC — routine, on file.
Projects & threads
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Asset Managers Build
capital flow
— open · last seen 2026-07-27
· 3 entries
Full item history for BlackRock →
Vocabulary