[jrflowers]

I like how confident this post is.

Blackrock absolutely has private equity operations which they do not hide even a little bit

> Private equity is a core pillar of BlackRock’s alternatives platform. BlackRock’s Private Equity teams manage USD$41.9 billion in capital commitments across direct, primary, secondary and co-investments.

https://www.blackrock.com/institutions/en-us/strategies/alte...

They also do more traditional asset management, but saying they “do not operate at all the same as a private equity” is like saying that Jack In The Box “does not operate at all like a taco place” despite the fact that you can buy a taco at every one of their locations.

[legitster]

> Our platform takes a holistic approach to investors’ private equity portfolios and is designed to offer strategies and solutions that align with client objectives and deliver persistent outperformance.

I get your point, but again, they are doing this on behalf of clients. And 49b is less than a percent of their holdings. So I would still think of them as a brokerage.

This would be like calling Uber a restaurant company just because they launched UberEats.

[rahimnathwani]

  they are doing this on behalf of clients

That's what all private equity firms do. They get paid to manage private equity funds. The managers don't usually put up most of the money. It comes from outside investors.

[chii]

> This would be like calling Uber a restaurant company just because they launched UberEats.

an apt comparison.

Some people dislike how ubereats operate.

The dislike of private equity is not unfounded, but also the problems don't actually stem from private equity at all, but from bad/misaligned incentives. People tend to want to assume that private equity buying a business will retain the same incentive as the original owners - but the reason why PE would buy a business is _because_ the original owners weren't being perfectly efficient (aka, stingy).

This has nothing to do with private equity per se, and has everything to do with capitalism at it's core.

[linotype]

$42 billion at Blackrock is nothing. They manage over ten trillion dollars.

[echoangle]

Shouldn’t you compare the sum to other private equity firms, not the rest of black rock? If they are a significant player in the space, I don’t think their other assets matter when saying that they operate in the space.