The giant asset management firm BlackRock said its profit rose 20 percent in the first quarter, as it attracted more money to its mutual fund products.
BlackRock said on Thursday that it earned $756 million, or $4.40 a share, in the quarter, compared with $632 million, or $3.62 a share, in the period a year earlier. On an adjusted basis, its first-quarter profit was $4.43 a share, handily beating the estimate of $4.11 a share by analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters.
The firm benefited from an increase in assets under management, bolstering its fee revenue. BlackRock said it managed $4.4 trillion by the end of the quarter, 12 percent higher than a year earlier and 2 percent more than in the fourth quarter of last year.
Retail investors committed more money to a range of BlackRock products during the quarter, betting on the firm’s investing abilities during a choppy period for equity and debt markets.
These smaller investors committed the most to BlackRock’s fixed-income funds, which experienced $6 billion in retail inflows, but they also committed $2.2 billion to the firm’s stock funds. Over all, retail investors entrusted $14 billion with BlackRock products during the quarter.
Institutional investors, however, withdrew $8 billion from BlackRock’s actively managed stock funds and $7 billion from its actively managed fixed-income funds. These investors favored index products, committing $8.7 billion to BlackRock’s stock index funds and nearly $10 billion to its fixed-income index funds.
BlackRock said its total long-term net inflows in the quarter were $26.7 billion.
“The strength and stability of our diversified platform again drove our results,†Laurence D. Fink, the chairman and chief executive, said in a statement.
BlackRock said that its total revenue in the quarter rose 9 percent from the year earlier to $2.7 billion, bolstered by its administration fees, investment advisory business and securities lending activities.
The firm announced a series of executive shifts earlier this month, aimed at grooming potential successors to Mr. Fink.
