Headquartered in New York‚ BlackRock employs more than 8‚500 professionals and maintains offices in 24 countries around the world.

Since its founding‚ BlackRock’s core philosophy has been grounded in the belief that their clients’ needs are of paramount importance and its sole business is managing its clients’ assets on their behalf. With this as a framework‚ BlackRock has assembled teams of investment professionals with significant expertise in global capital markets.

In a $13.5 billion deal‚ BlackRock purchased Barclays Global Investors in Dec 2009 and immediately became the world’s largest asset manager. The deal included the market-leading iShares exchange traded funds business. The combined firm will operate under the BlackRock name and the iShares brand will be retained.

“Since this transaction was announced in early June‚ BlackRock and BGI employees have demonstrated their commitment to serving clients and delivering competitive investment results. Both firms maintained strong core business momentum while achieving the close of an unprecedented merger in less than six months‚” commented Laurence D. Fink‚ BlackRock’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.

BlackRock’s assets under management total $3.36 trillion as of March 31‚ 2010.