World's largest asset manager BlackRock is closing in on an unprecedented $6 trillion in assets under management, buoyed by an historic bull-market and surging ETF popularity.
Its profits rose more than 8% in Q3, beating every other money manager on Wall Street as it lured $96 billion into its funds.
Most of the fresh cash came to iShares, with $1.5bn a day flowing into its ETFs. iShares was purchased by BlackRock from Barclays during the 2008 financial crisis at a below market price. This may have proved one of the best deals in financial history.
With the help of $264bn inflows this year, BlackRock's assets under management now sit at $5.98 trillion.
But it wasn't all smiles and roses for the company. In what is perhaps a comment on the industry as a whole, BlackRock's actively managed equity funds saw net outflows for the quarter.
While only making up a quarter of the group's AUM, actively managed funds still supply BlackRock with around half its fee pool.
