BlackRock Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
January 15, 2025
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Operator

Good morning. My name is Jennifer, and I will be your conference facilitator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to the BlackRock Incorporated 4th Quarter 2024 Earnings Teleconference. Our host for today's call will be Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Lawrence D. Fink Chief Financial Officer, Martin S.

Operator

Small President, Robert S. Capito and General Counsel, Christopher J. Meade. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer period.

Operator

Thank you. Mr. Meade, you may begin your conference.

Christopher Meade
Christopher Meade
Senior MD, General Counsel & Chief Legal Officer at BlackRock

Good morning, everyone. I'm Chris Meade, the General Counsel of BlackRock. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that during the course of this call, we may make a number of forward looking statements. We call your attention to the fact that BlackRock's actual results may, of course, differ from these statements. As you know, BlackRock has filed reports with the SEC, which lists some of the factors that may cause the results of BlackRock to differ materially from what we say today.

Christopher Meade
Christopher Meade
Senior MD, General Counsel & Chief Legal Officer at BlackRock

BlackRock assumes no duty and does not undertake to update any forward looking statements. So with that, I'll turn it over to Martin.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

Thanks, Chris. Good morning and Happy New Year to everyone. It's my pleasure to present results for the Q4 and full year 2024. Before I turn it over to Larry, I'll review our financial performance and business results. Our earnings release discloses both GAAP and as adjusted financial results.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

I'll be focusing primarily on our as adjusted results. With over $600,000,000,000 in net new assets entrusted to BlackRock, 2024 was a milestone year of programmatic organic and inorganic actions rooted in client needs, investment capability expansion, technology and scale. We executed breakthrough investment offerings and industry leading partnerships. 2024 marks a quantum leap forward for BlackRock against our long term value creation objectives and an invigoration of the future of asset management and technology services for our clients. We've spoken all year about how organic growth momentum and overall client sentiment has been improving.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

BlackRock saw record net inflows in 2024 powered by 2 back to back record flows quarters in the second half. Our annual revenue, operating income and earnings per share each grew double digits. We made disciplined investments for profitable growth, delivering 280 basis points of margin expansion as our AUM grew to a new high of nearly $11,600,000,000,000 We entered 2025 from a position of strength, having generated 7% annualized organic base fee growth in the 4th quarter, our highest in 3 years. Our record client activity and the accelerating organic revenue growth we saw in 2024, they're independent of the lift that we believe will come from GIP, HPS and Prequent. Our structural growth businesses, ETFs, Aladdin, Outsourcing, Fixed Income, they're the strong foundations to serve clients and deliver on our through the cycle 5% organic growth objectives.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

We didn't need M and A to achieve and rise above our organic base fee growth target. Our expansions are about more deeply serving clients in high growth segments that can exceed our 5% goals. We enter 2025 on a new trajectory with record AUM and operating income and having increased our effective fee rate by 7 tenths of a basis point. Over the course of 2025, we'll be integrating and adding the high growth and earnings power of GIP, HPS and Prequin. Clients have embraced our strategy.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

Our track record of successful acquisitions and integrations is bringing clients into deeper relationships with BlackRock. We finished 2024 with sequential quarters of atorabovetargetorganicgrowth. More importantly, that organic growth is broad based across institutional, wealth and technology and across regions. Clients want to consolidate more of their portfolios with a partner that's with them for the long term. They want portfolios that are seamlessly integrated across public and private markets that are dynamic and that are underpinned by data, risk management and technology.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

BlackRock is now truly in a category of 1. We've built a unique asset management and FinTech platform that's integrated across public and private markets. With the close of the GIP transaction this past October and our planned acquisition of HPS, BlackRock's private markets and alternatives platform is expected to be $600,000,000,000 in client assets, a top 5 provider and over $3,000,000,000 in revenues or about 15% of 2024 revenues. BlackRock houses whole portfolio solutions for clients, the world's number one ETF franchise by assets flows and breadth of exposures, a $3,000,000,000,000 fixed income platform across Active and Index, dollars 700,000,000,000 managed for insurance companies, over $350,000,000,000 in models direct indexing and SMAs for wealth managers, over $900,000,000,000 in cash management AUM, leading advisory services and our proven Aladdin technology with $1,600,000,000 in revenues. Aladdin is powering a whole portfolio ecosystem across public and private markets with eFront and our planned acquisition of Prequent.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

On a pro form a basis for HPS and Prequin, private markets and technology are expected to make up over 20% of BlackRock's overall revenue. That's an ecosystem we feel wins with client needs and results in over 20% of our revenue base and long dated less market sensitive products and services. Our mix continues to evolve towards higher secular growth areas with clients. We believe this will translate to higher and more durable organic growth, greater resilience through market cycles and multiple expansion. In 2024, BlackRock generated a record $641,000,000,000 of total net inflows and delivered 4% organic base fee growth.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

We finished the year strong in the Q4 with $281,000,000,000 of total net inflows and 7% annualized organic base fee growth. Full year revenue of $20,400,000,000 was up 14% year over year. Operating income of $8,100,000,000 was up 23% and earnings per share of $43.61 increased 15%. 4th quarter revenue of $5,700,000,000 was 23% higher year over year, driven by the impact of higher markets on average AUM and higher performance fees. Quarterly operating income of $2,300,000,000 was up 36%, while earnings per share of $11.93 was 23% higher versus a year ago.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

EPS also reflected a lower tax rate, partially offset by lower non operating income and a higher share count in the current quarter. The higher share count included 6,900,000 shares issued and delivered at the closing of the GIP transaction. Non operating results for the quarter included $7,000,000 of net investment losses, primarily due to changes in co investment valuations. Lower interest income in the current quarter reflected the delivery of cash at the closing of the GIP transaction, which was raised through our debt offering in March 2024. Our as adjusted tax rate for the Q4 was approximately 21% and benefited from discrete items.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

We currently estimate that 25% is a reasonable projected tax run rate for 2025. The actual effective tax rate may differ because of non recurring or discrete items or potential changes in tax legislation. 4th quarter base fees and securities lending revenue of CAD 4,400,000,000 was up 23% year over year and up 10% sequentially, driven by the positive impact of market beta on average AUM, organic base fee growth and approximately $230,000,000 of base fees from GIP. Our annualized effective fee rate was approximately 0.7th of a basis point higher compared to the Q3. Over time and with continued growth in infrastructure strategies and the successful closing of the HPS acquisition, we would expect to see positive leverage to base fee revenue, average fee rates and organic growth as we grow private markets with clients.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

This is evidenced by this quarter's fee rate increase primarily reflecting the onboarding of higher fee rate private markets assets following the GIP closing. 4th quarter and full year performance fees of $451,000,000 $1,200,000,000 respectively increased from a year ago led by higher revenue from alternatives. We saw strong broad based performance across hedge funds. Quarterly technology services revenue increased 13% year over year and full year revenue of $1,600,000,000 increased 8%, reflecting the successful onboarding of a number of new clients and expanding relationships with existing clients. Full year technology services revenue growth also reflects the prior year revenue impact of several clients renewals of eFront on premises licenses.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

Annual contract value or ACV increased 12% year over year. On a constant currency basis, we estimate ACV would have increased 13% from a year ago. The need for integrated risk analytics and whole portfolio views across public and private markets is driving strong demand for Aladdin. We signed some of our largest clients ever in 2024. We remain committed to low to mid teens ACV growth over the long term.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

Total expense increased 9% in 2024 primarily due to higher incentive compensation, G and A and sales asset and account expense. Full year employee compensation and benefit expense was up 11%, reflecting higher incentive compensation as a result of higher performance fees and operating income. Recall that year over year and sequential comparisons of 4th quarter compensation expense are less relevant because we finalized full year compensation in the 4th

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

quarter. Full year

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

G and A expense was up 5%, primarily from planned technology investment spend, higher professional fees and GIP's G and A expense. During the year, we made disciplined investments in business to drive operating leverage and profitable growth. Our 4th quarter as adjusted operating margin of 45.5 percent increased 3.90 basis points year over year and our full year as adjusted operating margin of 44.5 percent was up 280 basis points. Looking ahead, we aim to maintain our systematic approach to investing for profitable growth on the budgeting principles we've consistently articulated for the last 12 to 18 months. We'll continue to be disciplined in prioritizing our hiring and overall investments with the ambition of delivering market leading organic growth and operating margin.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

At present, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions, we expect our planned acquisitions of Prequin and HPS to close in the Q1 of 2025 and in mid-twenty 25 respectively. Based on these closing timelines, we'd expect BlackRock's headcount to be higher in 2025. Our planned acquisitions of Prequin and HPS are expected to bring approximately 2,300 new colleagues to BlackRock. Additionally, excluding HPS, we would expect a mid to high single digit percentage increase in 2025 core G and A expense. Most of the core G and A expense growth should come from consolidating the G and A expense of GIP and Prequin and continued investment in technology as we look to operate more efficiently and better serve our clients.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

Our capital management strategy remains consistent. We invest first both organically and inorganically either to scale strategic growth initiatives or drive operational efficiency. We then return cash to our shareholders through a combination of dividends and share repurchases. After investing for growth, we returned over $4,700,000,000 to our shareholders through a combination of dividends and share repurchases in 2024. This includes open market repurchases of approximately 375,000,000 dollars and $1,600,000,000 for Q4 and full year respectively.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

Share repurchases have been a consistent element of our capital management strategy. In the last 10 years, we've repurchased 28,000,000 shares at an average price of $5.10 per share. Today, we're trading at almost double that. This represents a more than 15% annualized return for our shareholders. For both the GIP and HPS transactions, BlackRock Equity proved a valuable currency in consummating these transactions and structuring them for alignment with our shareholders.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

At present, based on capital spending plans for the year and subject to market and other conditions, we're targeting the purchase of $1,500,000,000 of shares during 2025. In addition and also subject to market and other conditions, we expect to seek Board approval later this month for an increase to our Q1 2025 dividend consistent with our track record of continued dividend growth. Record full year total net inflows of CAD 641,000,000,000 were diversified across active index and cash as well as by region led by $385,000,000,000 of net inflows from clients in the United States. BlackRock generated industry leading ETF net inflows of $390,000,000,000 in 2024 representing 11% organic asset and 7% organic base fee growth. Record annual net inflows into our ETFs included $41,000,000,000 into our digital assets ETPs that were just launched in 2024.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

4th quarter ETF net inflows of $143,000,000,000 reflected significant momentum into year end helped by seasonal portfolio reallocations. As U. S. Equity indices and spot Bitcoin prices reached new highs in the quarter, clients used iShares products to re risk and add these investment exposures to their portfolios. BlackRock's institutional platform generated net inflows of $74,000,000,000 in 20.24 led by active net inflows of $64,000,000,000 including the funding of several large outsourcing mandates from a variety of client types.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

Index net inflows of $9,000,000,000 were driven by $43,000,000,000 into fixed income. This was partially offset by $31,000,000,000 of net redemptions from low fee index equity strategies. Several large clients mostly outside the United States rebalanced their portfolios amid record equity market levels. Full year retail net inflows of $24,000,000,000 were led by continued strength in Aperio and inflows into active fixed income mutual funds. Aperio had another record year in 2024 with net inflows of $14,000,000,000 and active fixed income added $12,000,000,000 of net inflows.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

Demand for private markets remained strong with $9,000,000,000 of net inflows during the year driven by infrastructure and private credit. BlackRock's full year net inflows also included the impact of successful realizations of $13,000,000,000 primarily from private equity, private credit and infrastructure strategies. Distributions are a key metric for measuring performance in the private markets. GIP has a strong track record of operating portfolio companies and ultimately returning capital to investors through exits with strong uplift. At present, we expect to recognize approximately $5,000,000,000 of realizations in the Q1 from older GIP fund vintages executing on successful exits.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

Starting this quarter, we've updated our earnings supplement to provide additional transparency into organic growth drivers and realizations activity for our private markets assets. We expect to make disclosure enhancements particularly around private markets beginning in the Q1 of 2025. Finally, BlackRock Cash Management saw $81,000,000,000 of net inflows in the Q4 and $153,000,000,000 in 2024. Flows were driven by both U. S.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

Government and international prime funds and included multiple large new client mandates. We continue to see strong growth in our cash and liquidity platform built on our scale and integrated offerings with AUM up 20% year over year. BlackRock's platform delivered record results in 2024 and the consistency of our results stands out even more over the long term with over $2,000,000,000,000 of client net inflows over the last 5 years. While 2024 was a watershed year for BlackRock, it's just the start of our next growth story. We're better positioned than ever to build with clients and create value for our shareholders.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

BlackRock is a meaningful outperformer when assets are in motion and investors are re risking. We're optimistic about market opportunities for our clients into 2025. I'm going to pass to Larry in a minute. But for those of you keeping score at home, this is Larry's 1 100th earnings call. We did a little research and counted only 15 current CEOs in the S and P 500 that have celebrated 100 earnings calls as the CEO.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

Larry, congratulations on a century of earnings calls.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

How's it feel?

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

I can't say I feel any older. I can't complain at all. It's been a fun journey and I think the journey going forward is going to be better. There's a lot of change in the world in the last 25 years. And a lot that stays the same.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

My meal the night before earnings remains the same and a bowl of cereal last night with blueberry. So I guess everything is the same. But thank you, Martin. And also Happy New Year to everybody. And thank you for joining the call.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

And yes, it is our 100th. We haven't done it alone. We have a number of shareholders that have been with us since the IPO of 25 years ago. I remember that original roadshow when we tried to convince many of our shareholders who remain today about the opportunities to invest in BlackRock. And we're also grateful for the analyst community in helping the markets understand our business.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

I think 2 of our equity analysts on the line are with us for the IPO. So I want to thank thanks to Bill Katz and Brian Bedell for your coverage over all these years. And the best is still in front of us. When we IPO ed, we were a company of 6.50 employees and we managed $165,000,000,000 in assets. That same year, we began selling our Aladdin technology to our clients for the first time.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

Today, clients trust us with nearly $11,600,000,000,000 of AUM and Aladdin has more than 130,000 users. Since our IPO, we've delivered an annualized total return for our shareholders about 21% compared to about 8% for the S and P 500. And as I said, this is just the beginning. As Martin said, 2024 was a milestone year for BlackRock. Clients entrusted us with a record $641,000,000,000 of net inflows, including $281,000,000,000 in the 4th quarter.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

We now have had 2 consecutive record flow quarters. We entered 2025 at our strongest inflection point. We added $1,500,000,000,000 of AUM, delivered record revenues and record operating income and increased our effective fee rate by 5%. Historic client activity took place as we executed on the most significant acquisitions we've done since BGI over 15 years ago. It's not uncommon for companies to see clients pausing.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

As they wait out the M and A results as they determine whether BlackRock is focusing on their needs. At BlackRock, clients are instead embracing and rewarding our strategy. Clients activity accelerated into the Q4, resulting in a 7% organic base fee growth and 12% Technology Services ACV growth. Our operating model delivered exceptional performance in a year of meaningful change. We crossed a $20,000,000,000 of annual revenues, up 14% from our 2023.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

Adjusted operating income grew by 23%. And our industry margins of 44.5% was up 280 basis points. We always raise the bar for ourselves and know our clients and shareholders do the same. Our results consistently beat even our high expectations and we surpassed Street estimates for flows, fee rate, base rate in addition to total revenues and margins and EPS. Our record organic growth and financial results do not yet reflect the full integration or pending acquisitions of GIP, HBS and frequent.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

All three of these businesses have a track record of delivering strong revenue growth, profitability and margin expansion. And we're steadily making organic investments ahead of the structural trends that we believe will drive outsized growth in the years ahead. We've had strong momentum across our entire franchise, including our newly enhanced private market platform. We positioned ahead of market opportunities that we believe will drive outsized growth for BlackRock in the years to come. We invested in our talent, which is fundamentally the most important thing that we invest in each and every year.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

Our key driver of BlackRock's success has been our focus on developing leaders with a broad range of experiences and connectivity across all of BlackRock, what I've called horizontal leadership. We look to identify people ready for the next challenge and then move them into roles that both advance their professional journeys and drive our business forward. Today, we are excited to announce that many leaders across the firm are taking on new and expanded roles and responsibilities that will help drive our next phase of growth. Part of the leadership changes reflect on Mark Weidman's desire to pursue his next chapter after nearly 20 years with BlackRock. We've discussed this transition over a number of months and he will be with us through spring and I want to take a moment to recognize and thank Mark.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

Mark is a great friend of mine, a great friend of the firms and has helped drive strong growth for BlackRock for our clients and for our shareholders. He's also built a powerful team of leaders prepared to take on new responsibilities and drive our business forward. This includes a number of the senior leaders taking on expanded roles. Mark will work with our leadership team over the next few months to ensure a smooth transition. We thank him for his many contributions, his partnership and his vision in shaping the successful evolution of BlackRock.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

Rob and I are proud of the deep leadership team at BlackRock. It reflects a breadth of experience and sustained excellence. Strategic acquisitions have also historically strengthened our firm, strengthened our culture and bringing top talent, new skills and experience into our organization. Our culture has consistently evolved as we welcome new teams and colleagues to BlackRock. And today, it represents a blending of the best parts of the cultures that have come together across the years across all the firms that became part of BlackRock.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

Few months ago, we welcomed the influx of talent with the close of GIP. We've already enjoyed great connectivity and our teams are energized. BlackRock's world class leadership alongside the top talent from GIP, from HPS and frequent position us to serve our clients with excellence and seizing the opportunities ahead for us. In my conversations with clients around the world, they're eager to put capital work and they want to do it through BlackRock. Public Markets entered the year from a position of strength.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

Clients holding cash on the sidelines missed out on a 25% total return in equities last year. We expect 2025 to be a dynamic investing environment. As policies and economic questions play out, the most important factor will be the growth backdrop. Mega forces like AI and ongoing evolution in the debt financing and the low carbon transition are transforming economies with a long term growth trajectories. Capital Markets will play a key role in this transformation.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

Private market assets are an increasingly vital part of capital markets and blending both public and private markets will be critical to fully capturing growth opportunities. Long held investing principles need to evolve, including the traditional sixty-forty portfolio mix of stock and bonds. The diversifying nature of the stock and bond relationship is under increasingly strong pressure, making resilient portfolio construction more critical than ever. Clients are coming to BlackRock for advice on how to build portfolios, how to broaden out where they invest. For many, they will increasingly include private markets, especially private credit and infrastructure.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

We also think active strategies can provide an advantage in an environment that requires a more dynamic approach. BlackRock is well positioned to capitalize on structural growth opportunities against a backdrop of economic and capital market evolution. We've made coordinated investments to build the premier long term capital partner and technology provider across public and private markets. 2025 is a new launch point for significant growth for BlackRock, our clients and our shareholders. Our recent acquisition of GIP, the planned acquisitions of Prequent and HBS each position our platform ahead of evolving our client needs and structural industry trends.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

15 years ago, we acquired BGI and we're the 1st scale provider to integrate both active and index investments. In 2024, we made bold moves to connect public and private markets through portfolio management and technology. Your reaction to our recent announcement to acquire HBS has been extremely positive and we see great opportunities to partner more closely with clients and borrowers. The capabilities we're adding through these transactions allow us to serve clients even more comprehensively and position us to raise significant private capital. For our shareholders, we believe the increased contribution from private markets and technology will drive higher and more resilient organic growth, differentiating financial performance and multiple rerating.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

In addition to private markets, we are executing on the strongest opportunities that we've seen across multiple growth engines. These include technology, ETFs, multi asset solutions like outsourcing and models. We invested for years to develop leading franchises and capabilities that our clients need most and that are our long term growth channels. Importantly, they're scaled and integrated onto one platform with a culture that is client led, not product led. We're able to serve our clients in a way that no other asset manager can.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

Aladdin has always been the operating system uniting all of BlackRock. It's grown and evolved as BlackRock has. It's the industry's most comprehensive operating system, supporting scale and commercial priorities for clients. We're growing our capability set in Aladdin, all with the aim of serving our clients through sophisticated risk management, scaled portfolio analytics across both public and private markets and soon private market data through frequent. 4th quarter ACV growth of 12% reflects several significant mandates with large financial and corporate partners.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

The Aladdin technology stack is resonating with over half the Aladdin sales involving multiple products. This includes clients using Aladdin Whole Portfolio View, which grew out of our acquisition of eFront to seamlessly manage portfolios across public and private asset classes on one platform. It includes clients leveraging enterprise Aladdin alongside Aladdin Accounting or the Aladdin Data Cloud. Technology is at the foundation of BlackRock. ETFs are another example.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

We view ETFs as a technology that facilitates investments. Since our acquisition of iShares, BlackRock has led in expanding the market for ETFs by making them more accessible and by delivering new asset classes like bonds or crypto and investment strategies like active. Approximately a quarter over $390,000,000,000 of ETF net inflows were into products launched in the last 5 years. Our active ETFs delivered $22,000,000,000 of net inflows in 2024, while our Bitcoin ETP was the largest ETF launched in history, growing to over $50,000,000,000 of AUM in less than a year and it was the 3rd highest asset gathering ETF in the entire ETF industry behind only the S and P 500 index funds. We're innovating at the product and portfolio level and accelerating our distribution capabilities to deliver a differentiated investment solution.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

In Europe, we scaled our ETF offering significantly and the market is still much more nascent than it is in the U. S. We have seen double digit organic growth in each of the last 2 years, including over $90,000,000,000 in growth in net inflows in 2024. Our European ETF platform is nearing $1,000,000,000,000 of assets, which is larger than the next 5 issuers combined. Much of this growth is powered by individual investors as online banking platforms, digital first offerings and ETF saving plans are enabling more first time investors to invest in their savings, to start and beginning their retirement savings and to build a better and more robust future for themselves.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

From first time individual investors to the most sophisticated institutions, ETFs are connecting investors to the growth of the capital markets around the world. Clients' needs are driving industry consolidation and investors increasingly prefer to work with BlackRock as a scaled multi asset provider. We see this in the wealth channels where managed model portfolios are the main way in which wealth managers are looking to scale their practices and better serve their clients. BlackRock has a leading models business backed by our multi asset, multi product capabilities across both ETFs and active strategies. We see this in our relationship with the largest asset owners, our pension funds and corporates, as these clients seek to deepen their ties with BlackRock.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

Many of these corporate partners see positive network effects to their core business and to their own shareholders by extending their relationship with BlackRock. This year, our clients entrusted us with more than $120,000,000,000 of scaled outsourcing mandates. Many of these outsourced portfolios are from pension plans and retirement schemes that we're investing on behalf of millions of workers to help them save for their future. Our LifePath target date franchise now manages more than $500,000,000,000 of assets and we're extending our work in this important area to help more and more people save for retirement. In 2024, we launched our LifePath Paycheck offering, which pairs a traditional 401 plan with the option to purchase an annuity based income stream as a worker approaches retirement.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

The solution is the fastest growing lifetime income target date strategy in the defined contribution market with $16,000,000,000 invested at year end. We also adopted Lifepath Paycheck as part of our U. S. Retirement savings plan for employees here at BlackRock. We think this will become the default defined contribution offering for the entire industry and we're exploring opportunities to expand Lightpath Paycheck to more partners and workers throughout the world.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

We have built our platform around a core strategy of connecting investors to the long term growth of the capital markets. In my conversation with clients and government leaders around the world, there has been great focus on the strong capital markets we have in the United States. Countries want to further develop their own robust capital markets and this drives investment in their own local economies, which in turn provides opportunity for job growth, wealth creation for their own citizens. Over the last few years, BlackRock has partnered with governments and sovereign wealth funds to help deepen their local capital markets. We see tremendous opportunities in India where digital infrastructure efforts are facilitating widespread access to digital payments and financial products.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

Our joint venture, JioBlackRock, is expected to launch later this year subject to regulatory approvals. We're combining our investment expertise with a local market knowledge of our partner GEO Financial Services to launch digital first assets with wealth management businesses. In Saudi Arabia, we're launching an investment management platform to partner with a public investment fund to drive investments and future growth in the local economy. And we're investing and layering the foundation today for opportunities that we believe will result in significant AUM over the next 5 to 10 years. We've had great success with our large asset owners in collaborations already, including our joint venture decarbonization partners with Temasek, our recent AI partnership with Microsoft and MGX, which aims to mobilize data centers and infrastructure investments.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

These global partnerships are only available to BlackRock because of the deep relationships we build over many years with local partners, heads of states and sophisticated asset owners. I have spent a lot of time on the road last year as has Rao and other members of our leadership team. Bayo and I have also traveled to see clients together in recent months. We're spending time with our institutional clients, our wealth clients and increasingly with our largest asset owners in the world. Clients, corporates and sovereigns are looking to assemble deeply intertwined partnerships, not just the set it and forget it investments that yield a good return.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

BlackRock is in a class of its own and being able to partner with clients comprehensively and in an integrated scaled way. We can build with clients across their entire portfolio and across the investment lifecycle from ETFs to high performing active in private markets to technology and data through Aladdin, eFront and eventually PreQuint. The strength of our platform and the commitment of our employees in serving our clients powered record results for our shareholders in 2024. And that was before significant growth unlock from our strategic acquisitions and organic investments in high growth markets around the world. 2024 was just the beginning.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

BlackRocker enters 2025 with more growth and upside potential than ever. Operator, let's open it up for questions.

Operator

Your first question comes from Alex Blostein with Goldman Sachs.

Alex Blostein
Alex Blostein
Managing Director at Goldman Sachs

Hi, good morning everybody. Happy New Year. I wanted to start with a discussion on Money in Motion. That's something we talked about last year as well. As you think about 2025 and taking into account maybe the rates move we had recently, to what extent does that change the backdrop you're seeing in the marketplace today?

Alex Blostein
Alex Blostein
Managing Director at Goldman Sachs

And when it comes to more money in motion, what asset class do you guys expect to benefit most in 2025? Thanks.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

Thanks, Alex. Happy New Year. Listen, it all starts with clients. We had back to back quarters of above or at target organic base fee growth 5% in Q3, now 7% in Q4. It's definitely putting the lift we want in the trailing 12 month trend for our long term through the cycle target.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

Full year organic base fee growth was 4%. And so we're really entering 2025 with continued momentum in a real position of strength. Larry talked a bit about continued ETF exceptionalism, very strong contribution to the 7% organic base fee growth in Q4 rounded out by private markets and alternatives, fixed income and cash. Even in ETFs like higher fee rate segments like active ETFs gathered over $20,000,000,000 in new assets, digital assets ETFs are driving higher organic base fee growth. We see those trends continuing into 2025.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

I would note that GIP's organic growth contributed to about 1 half of a percentage point to the overall 7% organic base fee growth. So it didn't have an outsized impact on this quarter's above target outcome. I do think it's a good indication that a growing infrastructure business, a growing private markets business can support obviously above trend, above target long term targets. But looking into 2025, we've built the business around structural growers, ETFs, models, Aladdin, fixed income and target date funds. They all drive sustainable organic base fee growth through market cycles.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

And in positive markets, our lived experience has been that these areas capture substantial upside, generate substantial earnings just like they did here in 2024, which where we hit records. Looking into 2025, we continue to see strength in structural growers, a bigger private markets business and BlackRock as a meaningful outperforming performer in re risking periods. Going back to previous election cycles, periods of central bank action, Alex, we had outsized upside capture. Look at 2017, 2018, 2021, we were well above 5% in those cycle targets. And I'd offer that I think we're even better diversified now.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

Even with higher for longer rates, we see short duration active fixed income, yield strategies like our active ETF managed by Rick Reeder, Bank, the INC is the ticker, and our cash management platform as growth engines. And I think that recent macro events are also going to lead to some interesting opportunities in secondaries and private credit in a more supportive market. We've achieved our organic base fee growth target of 5% on average over the last 5 years. We had 5% in Q3, 7% in Q4. We did it without the benefit of M and A.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

So we believe that HPS, frequent GIP can help lift our business beyond those targets. It gives us a lot of conviction about our 5% or better goal going forward, Alex. So we look forward to updating everybody on progress.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

Alex, let me just talk about the rate market. We've been living in a world of an inverted yield curve. And you had the ability to earn the highest return in keeping your money in cash. Now you missed out on some great equity market movements. But as you notice, the yield curve is steepening.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

And so you're going to over the time, you're going to be benefiting by going up the curve. That being said, there's close to $10,000,000,000,000 of money in money market funds. That money will be put to work. And as I said, with the steepening of the yield curve and with higher rates, it's going to lead to some great opportunities in the fixed income area. As Martin just said, I think more and more income oriented products like private credit and infrastructure are going to play a larger role with our investors over the course of the next 5 to 10 years.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

And if and we can't underestimate the role of the capital markets as that is going to be developed more robustly even in Europe and other parts of the world where there's going to present even better opportunities. There's no place like the United States, with the U. S. Exceptionalism that you have if you're a small start up, a medium company that you have access to so much capital. That is one of the principal drivers of the U.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

S. Economy. And I do believe that is hope to be replicated in other economies right now. And that development having a strong banking system with a strong capital market system, really plays well into our future growth.

Operator

Your next question comes from Craig Siegenthaler with Bank of America.

Craig Siegenthaler
Craig Siegenthaler
Managing Director at Bank of America

Happy New Year, Larry. Hope everyone's doing well. My question is on retirement. So BlackRock is the largest DCIO manager and one of the largest managers of AUM and foreign ks plans and target date funds. And currently, these strategies have a 0% allocation to alts, but the red sweep in November has many of us debating if alts will break in the retirement channel.

Craig Siegenthaler
Craig Siegenthaler
Managing Director at Bank of America

So especially given your recent acquisitions of GIP and HPS, I don't know if any firm is better positioned for this, Seem. So we wanted to get your updated prospects on alts finally breaking into the U. S. Retirement channel.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

Thanks, Greg. Happy New Year. I'll give it a go and then see if Larry has anything to add. But listen, we think of ourselves as a retirement company. More than half of the $11,600,000,000,000 of assets that BlackRock manages are related to retirement.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

We've been at the forefront, I think, of product innovation. We've been at the forefront of advocacy for retirement solutions through our whole history. It was in fact Barclays Global Investors that pioneered the 1st target date fund back in 1993. It was a revolutionary concept eliminating I think some of the guesswork for retirement savers by automatically adjusting their investment mix over time. We now today as you mentioned have over a $500,000,000,000 of assets in LifePath and target date funds.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

We're the number one DCIO provider. As Larry went through in detail, we've been innovating the target date structure to include guaranteed income with LifePath Paycheck. So we see real potential benefits that retirees could have with greater diversification, better retirement outcomes by blending public and private. I mean people have won Nobel Prizes talking about the market portfolio. It wasn't just about public markets, it's also about private markets.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

And so we've been doing work. We've been doing work. We're always doing work on product innovation. We've been thinking about how to bring private markets potentially into target date structures. We think the same innovations that powered LifePath Paycheck could ultimately power a target date structure with private markets and alternatives as part of the glide path.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

We'd also think about things like managed accounts and models, where we've been working on, including public private models, as we announced with the Partners Group model portfolios, which we think can make their way into retirement counts as well. And so we do think this is a real opportunity. With our leading presence in these channels, we've got the relationships, the distribution, the investment expertise to capitalize on these opportunities to create better retirement outcomes. We do think we're watching the space closely. For more tangible opportunities, we do think there'll have to be some reforms, potentially safe harbors, litigation or advice reform in the U.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

S. To add private markets to DC plants. So we're watching the space closely, keeping in touch with the trade associations. We're doing a lot of work in keeping connected with Washington. But for years, we've tried to innovate.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

We've advocated on behalf of workers to improve retirement solutions. We think there's a real opportunity here. And if there is an opportunity to bring private markets to the retirement channel, we'll aim to be at the forefront, Craig.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

Craig, let me add one more point that I think is essential. And that is having better analytics and data. That will be fueling, I think regulatory opportunities to expand offerings in this space. As you know, the retirement system is heavily laden with a lot of regulation. Fiduciary standard is very high.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

And so, as a result of that, the need for better market analytics and data are essential. And this is one of the primary reasons why we sought out and acquired frequent. Having the analytics that we have with eFront and Aladdin and the data that we will have will allow the entire market to have access to better information. And we believe more and more asset managers will then take on Aladdin with frequent data and eFront to help them navigate this. And so to me, dovetailing relaxed regulatory oversight can only happen if we have better systematic analytics and data to work with the investors under ERISA laws.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

And I think this is essential and this is one of the key reasons why we made the acquisition a frequent.

Operator

Your next question comes from Michael Cyprys with Morgan Stanley.

Michael Cyprys
Michael Cyprys
Managing Director at Morgan Stanley

Hey, good morning. Happy New Year. It's been a little bit over a month since you announced the HPS acquisition. Just curious here in terms of the conversations you're having with clients, how that dialogue has evolved given the expanded private credit capabilities that you have. I believe insurance and private wealth were some of the areas that you were most excited about.

Michael Cyprys
Michael Cyprys
Managing Director at Morgan Stanley

Just curious what steps you might take to best maximize that opportunity here as you're thinking about 2025. What sort of growth might this translate into? And which of the opportunities do you see as more near term versus more medium to longer term?

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

Well, obviously, we need to close and we expect to close sometime in the Q2. That would be our objective. And we're very excited about the client feedback related to HPS. It has been extraordinarily positive across all the channels. HPS has incredible relationships with clients worldwide and that dovetails with our relationships across all the insurance companies.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

And so I do believe insurance will be one of the primary areas of growth for us. But as we were talking about earlier, if we could really expand in the wealth channels, HBS right now has about $20,000,000,000 in wealth channels already. And we believe with the BlackRock connectivity with all the wealth management organizations that we have an opportunity to really increase that size by a dramatic amount. And our conversations that we've had globally worldwide from Japan to the Middle East and throughout Europe. Probably one of the great surprises to me was the conversations we're having about expanding private credit as a part of these portfolios.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

And as I said earlier, when we did not do the HPS acquisition as a singular expansion, you have to overlay the design around buying frequent and having eFront and bringing that together and having the ability to provide better data and analytics to these markets and that will then provide much more expansion of the market. And we've seen that over the last 40 odd years we've been in business and throughout my career, when you have better data and analytics as you're expanding new and frontier markets, they become large scale markets through data and analytics. And so we believe we will be the best suited organization to take advantage of that expansion of the private credit markets in the future.

Operator

Your next question comes from Mike Brown with Wells Fargo.

Michael Brown
Michael Brown
Equity Research Analyst - Asset Managers, Brokers and Exchanges at Wells Fargo

Great. Good morning, guys.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

Mike, happy New Year.

Michael Brown
Michael Brown
Equity Research Analyst - Asset Managers, Brokers and Exchanges at Wells Fargo

Happy New Year. I wanted to follow-up on

Michael Brown
Michael Brown
Equity Research Analyst - Asset Managers, Brokers and Exchanges at Wells Fargo

the expense guidance for the year. So thank you for the core G and A guide.

Michael Brown
Michael Brown
Equity Research Analyst - Asset Managers, Brokers and Exchanges at Wells Fargo

I guess as we think about the contribution from HPS, assuming that mid-twenty 25 close, how should we think about kind of the guide including that? And then as we think about the margin, I appreciate that markets and FX are really going to impact the outcome. But could

Michael Brown
Michael Brown
Equity Research Analyst - Asset Managers, Brokers and Exchanges at Wells Fargo

you just give us some thoughts on maybe

Michael Brown
Michael Brown
Equity Research Analyst - Asset Managers, Brokers and Exchanges at Wells Fargo

the puts and takes that we should consider for the margin in 2025 relative to 2024?

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

Sure. Thanks for the question. So let me just put some context around it. I think our approach to shareholder value creation is to generate consistently market leading organic growth. It's to drive operating leverage and industry leading margins and to execute on a consistent capital management strategy.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

We have a strong track record of investing in our business for growth and scale while expanding capability. It's not just about growth, it's about profitable growth over the long term. Our growth comes from being disciplined in making and managing continued investments in the business. We're keeping the rules based budgeting principles that I've outlined over the last 12 to 18 months. That's sizing our operating investments, in line with a prudent lens on organic growth potential.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

It's aiming to put flexibility in our cost base and variabilizing more expenses where we can. And most importantly, it's looking to generate fixed cost scale, especially through investments in technology. We've got a, I think, consistent track record in delivering industry leading margins and improving them. I think you see in 2024 those scale indicators came through in the results. We grew operating income by over 20%, generated close to 3 percentage points of margin improvement versus 23%.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

We improved margin by 3.90 basis points year on year in Q4, while operating income was up 30%. And since the end of 2022, a more rope metric is BlackRock AUM is up $3,000,000,000,000 while headcount is up by a more modest one point 1300 employees, about 7% headcount growth. So we really see ourselves as continuing on that strategy of driving scale and productivity, which shows up in margin expansion. On the outlook for 2025, the guidance is mid to high single digits excluding HPS as I mentioned. In terms of the major influences, we think our budgeting approach in a positive market environment should drop more profitability into operating income.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

Market movements are our highest margin item, Mike, both on the way up and on the way down. We see the conditions for reasonably positive growth in markets over the near to intermediate term. So we believe we can continue to invest to accelerate growth and deliver margin expansion through this rules based budgeting that I've outlined. And we expect that the impact of positive markets on AUM and revenue through this budgeting approach would drive further margin expansion into 2025.

Operator

We'll go next to Ken Worthington of JPMorgan.

Ken Worthington
Ken Worthington
Financial Analyst at JP Morgan

Good morning. Happy New Year. Thank you for taking my question. I wanted to piggyback a little bit on Alex's question. What are your thoughts on the outlook for fixed income flows as we look out to the next 12 months?

Ken Worthington
Ken Worthington
Financial Analyst at JP Morgan

I guess maybe starting, where do you see investors positioned in fixed income as we begin 2025? And do you get the sense generally that investors are under or over allocated to fixed income broadly? And how do you see those allocations evolving this year? I think you've successfully made the case that the allocations are also be increasing. You made the case for a while that the allocations to cash are probably too high.

Ken Worthington
Ken Worthington
Financial Analyst at JP Morgan

How do we think about this sort of flowing into fixed income allocations for the next 12 months?

Robert Kapito
Robert Kapito
President at BlackRock

So I'll take that one. Last time I mentioned, I thought it would rain fixed income. I'm going to continue that for 2025, but I won't go as far as a Nobel Prize, Martin, in fixed income. But a more balanced term structure of interest rates is an indicator that we're going to watch to indicate the potential demand for intermediate and longer duration fixed income. And you know this has been negative for years.

Robert Kapito
Robert Kapito
President at BlackRock

And now the U. S. Term premium has reached its highest level in a decade. Now we see that people are under allocated to fixed income and we see that through our models business and we see that they're looking to increase their weightings in longer duration fixed income. And whether there's a bull market steepener or a bear market steepener, I do believe some of that large allocation, the cash that Larry mentioned being around $10,000,000,000,000 is going to look for opportunities to increase their income.

Robert Kapito
Robert Kapito
President at BlackRock

And with countries around the globe at deficits, there is going to be a lot of issuance and you'll see the premium over treasuries be significant enough to move that money from cash into intermediate and longer term duration fixed income. So last year, we saw strong demand. Our fixed income flows were $164,000,000,000 in 2024. That's driven 6% organic asset growth and that included $24,000,000,000 in the 4th quarter alone. Now one of the other reasons for this demand is better wrappers to express your interest in fixed income.

Robert Kapito
Robert Kapito
President at BlackRock

So we saw demand across iShares, non ETF index and active fixed income. And active fixed income continue to include scaled institutional assignments as well, not just retail and this came primarily from insurance partners. So I think spread income presents a great opportunity even if duration is not as reliable a diversifier as it used to be. And we see a lot of clients that want to clip solid yields at the front end of the curve and now we expect that to continue into the longer end of the curve. So the other part is the run up in equities last year actually over made them over allocated to equities, so they need to catch up in fixed income.

Robert Kapito
Robert Kapito
President at BlackRock

So I think it continues to roll into cash and then cash as rates change, move into intermediate and longer duration fixed income paper. And that will not only be in the public markets, but it will be in the private markets as well, which describes part of the acquisition you are asking Larry and Martin about.

Operator

Your next question comes from Brian Bedell with Deutsche Bank.

Brian Bedell
Director at Deutsche Bank Securities

Great. Thanks. Good morning, guys.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

Hi, Brian. Hi, Brian.

Brian Bedell
Director at Deutsche Bank Securities

Good morning, guys.

Brian Bedell
Director at Deutsche Bank Securities

Hi, happy New Year.

Brian Bedell
Director at Deutsche Bank Securities

Good New Year. Yes, no, thanks. I was just thinking, I certainly couldn't imagine you've become what you've become sitting back in 1999 as a leading fixed income manager at the time. I always knew the strategy was great, but the firm has certainly evolved I think well beyond anyone's expectations. So congrats on that journey.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

So have you turned 35 yet?

Brian Bedell
Director at Deutsche Bank Securities

Yes, exactly. It's been a long time for sure. Yes, but so maybe just thinking about this evolution of the strategy in alternatives and particularly the retail end of that. So maybe just talk a little bit about your confidence. Clearly, you have a lot of ways to go into retail on the alt side.

Brian Bedell
Director at Deutsche Bank Securities

But your confidence on that building up because it's obviously there's still a lot of roadblocks into growth in those channels. And I know you talked about the 401 channel earlier. Maybe within that answer, you can comment on your view of the likelihood of Safe Harbor provisioning in the 401 market and the demand from 401 plan sponsors to actually adopt alts within their portfolios, which clearly would obviously benefit the planned participants substantially. So just, I guess, overall, just your confidence on the retail market for alts building in even in 2025 and into 26 for you inclusive of potentially 401 ks?

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

Thanks so much. So we this is one of the I'm most fond one of the businesses I'm most fond of here at BlackRock. We have strong relationships in wealth and retail markets across the globe. As Larry mentioned in his remarks, our aims to help wealth managers build long term portfolios that blend public and private markets exposures. The market is still early, as you said.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

Wealth manager and retail allocations to private markets still in the low single digits on most of the cerule dinner data. We are focused on innovating to provide better access to private markets for wealth managers and retail investors and that's across taxable and non taxable accounts, retirement accounts. Let me tell you about a couple of things we're working on and what I think are some of the bigger opportunities. As we had previously announced, we're working on a first of its kind managed model solution with the Partners Group. We think this will simplify wealth access, offering a single subscription model product with varied allocations based on risk tolerance, but moving the private markets to a model portfolio with different risk tolerances that blends public private, that manages the cash flows, that's on a single subscription document.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

We think that's a huge unlock. One of the barriers to adoption with wealth managers is just the operational burden and tax of managing multiple subscription documents and cash flows and distributions for private markets products. We think a managed account can do that better and increase access. In Europe and Asia, those markets are in a different place in the United States when it comes to private markets in retirement accounts. We recently launched our new evergreen fund offerings under the LTIF 2.0 structure.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

Those initial offerings are in private equity solutions and multi alternatives. Those evergreen funds we're planning to also have infrastructure and private credit offerings into the future. We're looking at bringing similar structures in terms of evergreen products for the United States as well. The planned acquisition of HPS is going to bring real scale and expertise in the wealth channel for us, including more than $20,000,000,000 of wealth focused assets in H Lend, one of the high performing BDCs in the market. We think there's a great opportunity to continue to scale that in the channels where HPS is, but also bring that to the RIA market where BlackRock has a particularly large footprint.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

We have really excellent momentum in many of the strategies that we have in B debt. Our non traded BDC has about $600,000,000 plus and growing. Our credit interval fund CredX, same deal has had a lot of growing. I do think, that the biggest opportunity ahead of us is, to integrate semi liquid products and to integrate private markets into our over $300,000,000,000 managed models and SMA franchise. That would be the biggest unlock and I really do think it's our competitive advantage.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

It's at the heart of the models venture we have with Partners Group. It's at the heart of many of the previously announced partnerships we have with Envestnet, Geo Wealth, I Capital, Case and BestMark. So we think the 2 best execution channels for us here to help clients are target date funds and retirement accounts assuming that we can have favorable conditions to do so and manage models in wealth and retail channels and the LTF structures in U. K. And Europe.

Operator

Your next question comes from Phil Katz with TD Cowen.

William (Bill) katz
Senior Equity Analyst at TD Cowen

Okay. Thank you very much. Good morning, guys.

William (Bill) katz
Senior Equity Analyst at TD Cowen

Good morning, guys. Good morning, guys. Good morning, guys. Good morning, guys. Good morning, guys.

William (Bill) katz
Senior Equity Analyst at TD Cowen

Good morning, guys. Good morning, guys. Good morning, guys. Good morning, guys. Good morning, guys.

William (Bill) katz
Senior Equity Analyst at TD Cowen

Good morning, guys.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

Good morning, guys. Good morning, guys. Good morning, guys. Good morning, guys.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

Good morning, guys.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

Good morning, guys.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

Good morning, guys.

William (Bill) katz
Senior Equity Analyst at TD Cowen

Good morning, guys

William (Bill) katz
Senior Equity Analyst at TD Cowen

Anyway, thank you for the shout out. It's been a pleasure. Just maybe I don't know if other one gentlemen, just think about the evolution of the platform, then your guidance around buyback. As your earnings power continues to scale and become more diversified and more durable, how are you thinking about maybe the payout relative to the earnings power? And then how about the allocation underneath that between dividend growth and repurchase?

William (Bill) katz
Senior Equity Analyst at TD Cowen

Thank you.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

Thanks a lot, Bill. Our capital allocation strategy is consistent. As I mentioned earlier, like first to invest in the business, that's our main focus is investing the business to drive organic growth. We preference the dividend and then the size of our share repurchases. They're an output after those allocations of capital.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

We don't manage the company to hoard excess cash on BlackRock's balance sheet. So we have a very strong track record of returning that excess cash through share repurchases that are systematic. I think the size of future repurchases would result from a whole variety of factors. The levels of cash flow generation in organic growth and market beta and FX, the sizing of organic and inorganic investments, the leverage ratio of the company, the reasonableness of debt financing versus equity financing. So all of these things would influence ultimately the sizing of the share repurchase program.

Martin Small
Martin Small
Senior MD, CFO & Global Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock

But the share repurchase is an output, not an input into our capital management strategy. But this year, we had $4,700,000,000 return to shareholders. We know that BlackRock has become an attractive compounder between dividends and buybacks, and we want to keep that track record up for our clients and shareholders.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the allotted time for questions. Mr. Fink, do you have any closing remarks?

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

Yes, I do. Thank you, operator. I want to thank everybody for joining us this morning and your continued interest in our firm BlackRock. Our record results in 2024 are just the beginning of our next phase of growth. We invested ahead of our the structural growth trends and drivers that we believe will define the future of the capital markets and asset management.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

We have a lot of exciting work ahead of us, including the planned addition and integration of frequent and HBS. And we entered 2025 better positioned than ever to deliver differentiated performance to our clients and value creation for our shareholders. Everyone have a really wonderful quarter. Enjoy. Talk to you in next quarter.

Laurence Fink
Laurence Fink
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at BlackRock

Thank you.

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Earnings Conference Call
BlackRock Q4 2024
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