When the project ended in default, BlackRock clients lost their money, including the California Pension and Retirement System, which lost about $500 million. That same year, BlackRock's $5.4 billion purchase of Stuyvesant Town–Peter Cooper Village, a Manhattan housing complex, became the largest residential-real-estate deal in U.S. In 2006 Fink led the merger with Merrill Lynch Investment Managers, which doubled BlackRock's asset management portfolio. In 2003, Fink helped to negotiate the resignation of the CEO of the New York Stock Exchange, Richard Grasso, who was widely criticized for his $190 million pay package. 2000s įink, third from right, receiving a Woodrow Wilson Award in April 2010 His other positions at the company have included chairman of the board, chairman of the executive and leadership committees, chair of corporate council, and co-chair of the global client committee. When BlackRock split from Blackstone in 1994, Fink retained his positions, which he continued to hold after BlackRock became more independent in 1998. In 1988, under the corporate umbrella of The Blackstone Group, Fink co-founded BlackRock and became its director and CEO. The experience influenced his decision to start a company that would invest clients' money while also incorporating comprehensive risk management. He was successful at the bank until 1986, when his department lost $100 million due to his incorrect prediction about interest rates. įink added as much as $1 billion to First Boston's bottom line. At First Boston, Fink was a member of the management committee, a managing director, and co-head of the Taxable Fixed Income Division he also started the Financial Futures and Options Department, and headed the Mortgage and Real Estate Products Group. Career 1970 to 2000 įink started his career in 1976 at First Boston, a New York-based investment bank, where he was one of the first mortgage-backed security traders and eventually managed the firm's bond department.

He then received an MBA in Real Estate at the UCLA Anderson Graduate School of Management in 1976. He earned a BA in Political Science from UCLA in 1974. He grew up one of three children in a Jewish family in Van Nuys, California, where his mother Lila (1930-2012) was an English professor and his father Frederick (1925-2013) owned a shoe store.

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