BlackRock (BLK), A New Wall Street Behemoth

Laurence Fink does not look like your average Wall Street Professional. But the bespectacled Laurence is responsible for managing $3 Trillion in funds. Once a Managing Director with First Boston, Fink now manages his own firm BlackRock (NYSE: BLK), which withstood the turmoil of the financial meltdown.

After absorbing Merrill Lynch’s asset management business, now it’s planning to pay $13.5 billion to acquire Barclays Global Investors which would catapult BlackRock to the position of the biggest creator of exchange-traded funds.

BlackRock has more than doubled its market cap from March lows. Going against the market trend, BlackRock still heavily deals in subprime mortgage securities and other toxic assets. BlackRock is currently engaged with the Federal Government to manage billion dollars worth of toxic securities responsible for economic meltdown. However, BlackRock is also facing flak for having conflicting interests. One of them is a high management fee, which has further been fueled by the fact that the firm has collected $1.7 billion in fee in last six months.