How alternative can you get? Historically, conventional fund managers have dealt with the threat from private equity and hedge funds by creating or buying alternative investment funds of their own. Now BlackRock Inc. is going further down the diversification track, simultaneously growing its business inside private markets and expanding its revenue sources away from just running client money.
BlackRock on Sunday agreed to pay £2.55 billion ($3.23 billion) for Preqin, the London-based private-markets data provider. The small size of the transaction relative to the buyer’s $118 billion market value belies its significance: BlackRock is moving from being a data consumer to becoming a data owner and seller.