BlackRock Expands Further Into Private Assets, Partners With Santander
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BlackRock, Inc. BLK and Banco Santander, S.A. SAN have signed a memorandum of understanding, under which funds and accounts managed by BLK will invest up to $1 billion per year in select project finance, energy finance and infrastructure debt investment opportunities with Santander through structured transaction formats.
In a transaction in April, BlackRock agreed to provide financing on a $600 million diversified portfolio of infrastructure credit from Santander.
The latest agreement comes as the asset manager continues its expansion into infrastructure this year.
Gary Shedlin, the vice chairman at BlackRock, said, “We are pleased to expand our longstanding relationship with Santander through this agreement, which will provide long-term, flexible capital on a recurring basis to support the growth of its project finance franchise. At the same time, this agreement will provide further access to attractive, differentiated investment opportunities for our clients now and over the long term.”
Jose Garcia Cantera, the chief financial officer of SAN, stated, “This framework agreement with BlackRock will allow us to continue to proactively rotate our assets, further strengthening our financial position and allowing us to generate capital for additional profitable growth.”
BlackRock’s Expansion Into Private Assets
This year, BlackRock has been trying to expand deeper into private assets.
In January, the company agreed to acquire a global independent infrastructure manager, Global Infrastructure Partners, for $3 billion in cash and around 12 million shares of its own common stock.
After the closure of the deal, which is expected soon, the combined entity will have more than $150 billion in infrastructure client assets under management (AUM) across equity, debt and solutions. The deal will likely be slightly accretive to BlackRock’s adjusted earnings in the first full year post-closure.
Likewise, in an effort to enhance its private markets capabilities by integrating investments, technology and data across the entire portfolio, BlackRock announced a deal to acquire Preqin, a premier provider of private markets data, for almost $3.2 billion (￡2.55 billion) in cash.
The integration of London-based Preqin’s extensive data and research tools with BlackRock’s Aladdin platform is expected to create an unmatched private markets technology and data provider. By bringing together Preqin's capabilities with Aladdin’s workflow functionalities, BlackRock aims to deliver a comprehensive solution for fund managers and investors.
Notably, the private markets data segment is growing rapidly. The segment, which includes private equity, real estate, infrastructure and hedge funds, is projected to reach a total addressable market of $8 billion.
By tapping into this market, BlackRock aims to unlock significant growth potential and provide unparalleled data and analytics solutions to its clients.
