Finance
Advice From The Man Who Manages More Money Than Anyone On Earth
October 22, 2021
March 25, 2022
Larry Fink, CEO and chairman of the world’s biggest asset manager, BlackRock, said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has upended the world order that had been in place since the end of the Cold War.
“The Russian invasion of Ukraine has put an end to the globalization we have experienced over the last three decades,” Fink said in his 2022 letter to shareholders. “It has left many communities and people feeling isolated and looking inward. I believe this has exacerbated the polarization and extremist behavior we are seeing across society today.”
Back in the early 1990s when the world emerged from the Cold War, Russia was welcomed into the global financial system and given access to global capital markets, Fink wrote. The expansion of globalization accelerated international trade, grew global capital markets, and increased economic growth, he said.
It was right then, 34 years ago, when BlackRock was founded and the firm benefited immensely from the rise of globalization and growth of the capital markets, which fueled the need for technology-driven asset management, Fink said.
The CEO said BlackRock is committed to monitoring the direct and indirect impacts of the crisis, and aimed to understand how to navigate this new investment environment.
“The money we manage belongs to our clients. And to serve them, we work to understand how changes around the world will impact their investment outcomes,” Fink said.
