BlackRock's Q2 AUM Rises 17.7% Y/Y: What's Driving BLK's AUM Growth?

BlackRock Inc. BLK reported 17.7% year-over-year growth in assets under management (AUM) for the second quarter of 2025, reaching a record $12.53 trillion. Higher inflows in equity and fixed income instruments primarily drove this. Besides, BLK became the first asset manager to cross the $12 trillion mark in AUM.

Digital assets surged 329.3% during the quarter, reflecting BLK’s focus on the cryptocurrency space. This was reinforced by the recent $116 million stake by The Harvard Management Company in BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust.
  
BLK has been driving its AUM growth through product diversification and inorganic expansion. AUM witnessed a five-year (2019-2024) compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.2%. The upward momentum in AUM continued in the first half of 2025, with inflows of $152 billion.

As part of its expansion plan, in July 2025, BlackRock agreed to acquire ElmTree Funds and concluded the buyout of HPS Investment Partners to deepen its private market offerings. Further, in March 2025, it acquired Preqin for $3.2 billion to enhance its private markets offerings. In October 2024, the company acquired Global Infrastructure Partners to strengthen its infrastructure offerings and origination capabilities.

The momentum will likely continue as efforts to strengthen the iShares unit (offering more than 1,400 ETFs globally) and ETF operations (it received approval for spot Bitcoin and ether ETFs), and increased focus on the active equity business are expected to offer support.

How BlackRock’s Peers are Competing?

BlackRock’s peers like SEI Investments SEIC and Invesco Ltd. IVZ have been focusing on AUM growth as well. As of June 30, 2025, SEI Investments’ AUM was $517.5 billion, reflecting a rise of 10% from the prior-year quarter, while Invesco’s AUM was $2 trillion, up 16.6%.

SEI Investment and Invesco have been growing their AUM inorganically. In April 2025, Invesco collaborated with MassMutual’s subsidiary, Barings, to boost private credit offerings. SEI Investments acquired LifeYield in 2024 to boost multi-account tax management and attract investors to grow its portfolio.

BLK Price Performance, Valuation and Estimates

Shares of BlackRock have gained 15.5% compared with the industry’s growth of 2.4% in the past six months.

From a valuation standpoint, BLK trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 22.44X, above the industry.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for BlackRock’s 2025 earnings indicates a year-over-year rise of 8.6%, while the same for 2026 earnings suggests 9.6% growth. Earnings estimates have been revised upward for both years over the past week.

BlackRock currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).  You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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