The asset manager was able to grow net income by 4% to $875m versus the same period a year earlier, despite this.
The lower revenues reflect the continuing move of investor money out of active strategies into passives, so while assets under management continue to increase they are generating lower fees on average.
BlackRock’s retail long-term net outflows were $2.2bn with $1.9bn and $0.3bn from the United States and internationally respectively.
This figure was formed from fixed income net inflows of $5.8bn, equity net outflows of $3.9bn primarily related from European and US equities, and multi-asset net outflows of $3.5bn.
The firm’s ETF business iShares recorded long-term net inflows of $51.3bn led by equity net inflows of $25.5bn. Fixed income net inflows were $22.7bn. Commodities ETFs generated $2.9bn in new assets.
“BlackRock’s business model was built to thrive in all market environments,” said chairman and CEO Laurence Fink. “In the third quarter, even as investor preferences continued to migrate from equity to fixed income and cash, and away from active strategies, the diversity of our platform drove nearly $70 billion of total net inflows. Our $55 billion of long-term net inflows were positive across both active and index strategies, and positive across every asset class and region.”
“Retail and institutional investors continued turning to iShares as an effective way to express market views and generate alpha,” Fink added. “iShares once again captured the #1 market share of net new business in the United States, in Europe and globally, across both equity and fixed income. Our European fixed income ETFs reached $100 billion of AUM and fixed income remains an important growth area for iShares.”
