The Most Powerful Company In The World

Who is the most powerful company in the world? Some may say it as the president of the United States. Others may side with corporate America and deem the likes of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk to be more powerful, but there is someone else.

Likely, you have never heard of BlackRock. In less than 30 years, this company has grown from nothing to becoming the world’s largest asset manager. The assets in the rosters exceed the value of 9 Trillion dollars, and their net worth is equal to half of America’s GDP.

They don’t need a name in the mainstream media to be successful. They own and control the entire world.

But who are they?
What do they do?
And how does this one company in America influence every industry and sector in the world?

Let’s begin with who they are.

BlackRock was founded in 1988 by Larry Fink, along with Robert Capito, Susan Wagner, Barbara Novac, Ben Golib, Hugh Freighter, Ralph Schlostein, and Keith Anderson. This Most Powerful Company, aimed to provide corporations with asset management services, to help them manage their risks and investments.

The idea came when Fink, during his time in The First Boston Corporation, lost 100 Million Dollars as its head. That experience became the motivation for him to develop what he and the others considered to be excellent risk management and fiduciary practices.

BlackRock first got its funding from Pete Peterson of the Blackstone Group, who believed in Fink’s vision of a firm devoted to risk management. Fink’s company then essentially became an arm of Blackstone and it was called Blackstone Financial Management.

In exchange for a 50% stake in the bond business, Blackstone gave Fink and his team a $5 Million credit line. Within months, the business turned profitable and by 1989 the group’s assets had quadrupled to $2.7 Billion.

The company went public in 1999 at just $14 a share on the New York Stock Exchange and by the end of that year, they were handling 165 Billion dollars in assets. BlackRock grew both organically and by acquisitions and in 2004, they made their first significant acquisition.

Buying state street research and management’s holding company, SSRM Holding Ink from Metlife for $325 million in cash and $50 million in stock, and this was only the beginning.

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We’re aware to some extent that a handful of mega-corporations and private investment companies dominate every aspect of our lives. Larger parent companies own multiple smaller brands.
Pepsico, for example, owns a long list of food, beverage, and snack brand companies as does Coca-Cola, Nestle, Unilever, and Mars. These parent companies monopolize the packaged food industry as virtually every food brand is available to one of them.

These companies are publicly traded and run by boards. The largest shareholders have power over the decision making and here is where it gets interesting because when you look up who the largest shareholders are you find yet another monopoly.

While the top shareholders can change from time to time based on shares bought and sold. Two companies are consistently listed among the top institutional holders of these parent companies.

The Vanguard Group Inc. and BlackRock Inc. The same ownership trend exists in industries besides food and beverage.

What is your comment? Do you think they are the most powerful company in the world? If you found it interesting, comment below and share it with others.