Broker-dealers, fear not; Larry Fink does not become your next competitor. Nor will he be your firm's exit strategy.

Jessica Toonkel of Reuters reports that on Thursday morning at a [profile] shareholder meeting at the Palace Hotel in New York City, Fink (BlackRock's CEO) dismissed a question by an investor who wondered about the possibility of BlackRock ever, say, acquiring a retail brokerage.

"No, that's not part of our business model," Fink reportedly replied.

Fundsters and B-D executives alike would probably have been surprised if Fink had expressed any interest in buying or building a retail B-D. After all, a key piece of BlackRock's post-2000 growth was its Merrill Lynch Investment Management (MLIM) deal nine years ago, which separated MLIM from its famous retail B-D and investment banking parent.

So, the world's biggest asset manager, which also happens to be publicly traded and thus has access to the capital markets, is not about to buy its way into being a B-D. 

Edited by: Neil Anderson, Managing Editor


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