iShares eclipses $500 billion in assets under management

BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK) announced its Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) platform, iShares, has reached global Assets under Management (AUM) of US$509 billion as of March 31, 2010. The announcement comes at the same time as the business celebrates its 10th anniversary in Europe (including the UK), which is a significant milestone for both iShares and the history of ETFs. Today, iShares continues to drive the ETF industry's rapid growth, and accounts for nearly half of the industry's total assets under management.

At the outset, iShares' ambition was to ‘build a better world of investing', one that was founded on some key principles:

Outstanding client service
Transparency
Full liquidity
Choice in relation to availability of investment options
Cost effectiveness in relation to the value for money proposition

The recent financial crisis has served to highlight these requirements even more, with investors seeking products and solutions that are characterised by transparency, liquidity and cost effectiveness. Over the past ten years, iShares has fulfilled this need by launching products that seek to empower investors with core building blocks allowing them to implement their investment strategies in a flexible and cost effective way.

Commenting on the US$500 billion milestone and 10th anniversary celebration, Rory Tobin, Head of iShares International, said: "iShares' ETFs have significantly impacted the way people invest by providing investors with transparent, flexible, and liquid access to markets around the world. Achieving this $500 billion AUM milestone validates the acceptance of the iShares' ETF offering. Our ten year experience confirms feedback from our clients that they continue to prefer broad based beta building blocks that can be used as core holdings for asset allocation purposes. These are exciting times for ETFs in Europe and we look forward to working with investors and educating them as to the investment possibilities that can be realised through the usage of ETFs."

iShares has 434 ETFs globally as of March 31, 2010. iShares U.S. has 201 funds with $409 billion AUM and iShares Europe has 172 ETFs with $100 billion AUM.