Private market push in focus as BlackRock hosts investor day
By Davide Barbuscia
NEW YORK (Reuters) -BlackRock will hold an investor day on Thursday that is expected to provide insight into the asset management firm's strategic priorities and its growing focus on private markets.
The world's largest asset manager, overseeing $11.58 trillion as of the end of the first quarter, last year expanded its presence in private markets through a series of acquisitions that BlackRock's boss Larry Fink said were transformational for the New York-based firm.
BlackRock spent about $25 billion in 2024 on infrastructure investment fund Global Infrastructure Partners and private credit business HPS Investment Partners. It also struck a $3.2 billion deal to acquire UK data provider Preqin. That acquisition officially closed in March this year.
"I think investors are going to want more granular details and more color on BlackRock's strategy to increase exposure to alternative assets," said Cathy Seifert, an analyst at CFRA Research who covers BlackRock.
BlackRock declined to comment on the focus of its investor day.
Private assets generate significantly higher fees than exchange-traded funds (ETFs), a core part of BlackRock's business through its iShares franchise.
In his 2025 annual chairman's letter to shareholders, BlackRock's Chairman and CEO Fink said protectionism had returned with force as a result of a wealth divide that could be countered by offering more investors access to high-return private markets such as infrastructure and private credit.
Ben Budish, an analyst at Barclays, said he expected updates from the company on potentially creating indexes based on private markets after the acquisition of private markets data provider Preqin.
"Looking at what BlackRock did with iShares and ETFs, is there a way to do that with private markets? … I'm sure there's more details to come on that," he said.
Private credit, where non-bank institutions lend to companies, has experienced significant growth in recent years due to stricter regulations that have increased the cost for traditional banks to fund higher-risk loans.
But broader market volatility caused by U.S. President Donald Trump's aggressive stance on tariffs has led to slower dealmaking in private markets in general, raising some concerns there may be a mismatch between money available for private lending and not enough places to invest it.
Investors may also look for any signs regarding succession at the firm. Fink, 72, has led BlackRock since co-founding it in 1988. A recent wave of senior executive departures has reignited speculation about his eventual successor, even as Fink has signaled no immediate plan to step down.
"The firm would do itself a favor by highlighting the depth and breadth of their management bench, particularly since the company's business model is expanding and potentially becoming more complex," said Seifert.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
News24
35 minutes ago
- News24
Chris Roper: African audiences lead the global shift to social news
The 2025 Reuters Digital News Report reveals that news media in Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa are among the world's most trusted, even as social media and video platforms overtake traditional outlets, writes Chris Roper. Revelations of the 2025 The Reuters Digital News Report (DNR), now in its 14th iteration, include how audiences are moving towards social media and video platforms as a source of news, and the way this is contributing to the already eroding influence of traditional news organisations and 'supercharging a fragmented alternative media environment containing an array of podcasters, YouTubers, and TikTokkers. At the same time, chatbots powered by generative AI are emerging as a new way to access information, especially with people under 35, raising concerns about a potential loss of search referral traffic to publisher websites and apps.' There are still opportunities for news organisations to build different relationships with their readers, though, and arguably, this is especially so for African news publishers. Reliable content When describing how this applies to news globally, the authors write, 'Despite this, audiences remain mostly sceptical about news they find on both social and AI platforms, partly driven by concerns about access to reliable content. Online influencers and politicians are seen as the biggest threats in this regard, while the majority expect generative AI to make the news cheaper to make, but less accurate and less trustworthy. These concerns could offer opportunities for publishers, as audiences say they still look to news brands when checking for reliable information, ahead of sources such as politicians, influencers and trusted personal contacts.' Brokering a relationship that rests on trust is, of course, not an easy thing. Potentially, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa are well placed to do this, given that there still exists a high level of trust in news in those countries. The DNR includes a fourth African country, Morocco, but it is somewhat of an outlier in terms of the survey. Data for Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa are based on surveys that are representative of younger, English-speaking online news users only, rather than their respective national populations, which makes it difficult to draw comparisons with Morocco, where the survey was targeted at a more heterogeneous group. The report's authors advise caution when directly comparing data points between these African markets and countries with very high internet penetration where the online sample is more broadly representative of the national population. Bearing that caveat in mind, several instructive comparisons can still be made. High levels of trust in Nigeria and Kenya Nigeria and Kenya stand out with significantly high levels of overall trust in news. Nigeria recorded the highest overall trust among all 48 markets surveyed at 68% (ranking 1st), and Kenya was close behind at 65% (ranking 3rd). Trust in news in Nigeria has increased since 2021. South Africa also reported a relatively high trust level at 55% (ranking 5th overall), well above the global average of 40%. There is something of a red flag for South Africa, which has experienced a six percentage-point drop in trust since 2022 (from 61%), with almost all news brands seeing a decline. Morocco has one of the lowest levels of trust in news among the surveyed countries, at just 28% (ranking 42nd), significantly lower than its African counterparts. The real opportunity for media in Africa, perhaps, comes from this category of trust in media, and anxiety about what is real and what is false online. A significant majority of all four countries express high concern about distinguishing true from false news information online, with the African region showing the highest concern globally (73%). Both Kenya and Nigeria report 73% concern, and South Africa has 'high concern about information integrity' at 67%. Morocco's concern is at 54%. This contrasts with Western Europe, which has the lowest levels of concern (46%). Online influencers and personalities are perceived as a major threat for false or misleading information across all markets (47% global average). This concern is particularly high in Kenya (59%), Nigeria (58%), and South Africa (56%, and specifically for TikTok). Morocco also sees online influencers/personalities (52%) as the biggest threat, followed by national politicians (30%). All four countries exhibit a strong reliance on digital platforms and social media for news, which the report reveals is a trend common in the Global South. Social media is a primary source, and the report points out that this is the first year that social media has displaced television as the top way Americans get news, with the proportion of news consumers accessing news via social media and video networks in the United States (54%) overtaking both TV news (50%) and news websites/apps (48%) for the first time. This is going to be a significant strategic issue for traditional news publishers in Africa. How to take advantage of move to social media Instead of succumbing to the existential threat of the ever-accelerating move towards social media, how do they take advantage? The social media landscape is a fragmented one, with the report revealing that six online networks now reach more than 10% weekly with news content, compared to just two a decade ago, but African countries frequently rank among the top global users of social media platforms for news consumption, placing them in what we could term a social-first category alongside countries in Latin America and parts of Asia. This is particularly the case for video-centric platforms like YouTube and TikTok. African countries show some of the highest weekly usage of YouTube for news. More than half of the sampled populations in Kenya (54%, up five percentage points), Morocco (49%), and Nigeria (49%, up five percentage points) reported using YouTube for news, with South Africa also showing significant usage at 42%, although this is down five percentage points since the 2024 DNR. This positions them alongside top Asian countries, such as India (55%) and Thailand (55%), and significantly above the global average of 30%. TikTok and Facebook still major players TikTok is growing rapidly as a network for news consumption. Kenya is at 38%, South Africa at 33%, Nigeria at 28%, and Morocco at 24%, which is notably higher than the average use in the United States (12%) and Europe (11%), and the global average of 16%. Facebook is still a major player when it comes to news consumption. Nigeria leads with 65% weekly news usage, followed by Kenya (52%), South Africa (50%), and Morocco (47%). The global average is 36%. WhatsApp is also widely used for news in Africa, contrasting with the global average of 19%. Nigeria shows 53% weekly news usage, Kenya 46%, South Africa 41%, and Morocco 30%. Instagram's news usage is also considerable for Nigeria at 41%, Morocco at 32%, and Kenya at 26%. In South Africa, Instagram is the lowest of the six social media platforms covered by the report, with only 15% of those surveyed indicating they used it for news, a two percentage-point drop from 2024 and below the global average of 19%. Usage of social media platform X for news in African countries is mixed, with Kenya at 42%, Nigeria at 49% (a nine percentage point increase), Morocco at 11%, and South Africa at 16%. Kenya and Nigeria are way above the global average of 12%. READ | Online hate speech hits Africa, social media firms told to act Amid the decline in consumption of traditional news media, there is some hope in terms of consumption of local news in South Africa. The country stands out with the highest interest in local news (60%) among the surveyed countries, significantly higher than the average interest in local news across 45 markets (32%). This question was not asked for Kenya and Nigeria. Interestingly, audiences in these African countries, as well as in Asia, show notably higher comfort levels with news content produced mostly by AI with some human oversight compared to Europe. South Africa's comfort level is 34%, higher than the USA (19%) and Europe (15%). This might prove to be an opportunity for African news publishers to embark on a transparent implementation of AI into their news flow, one that includes audiences in the process. Instead of a challenge to editorial integrity, this could be a mechanism to build trust with readers. News avoidance A major threat, though, is the high levels of news avoidance. Globally, the DNR authors tell us, 'trust and low engagement in the news are closely connected with 'avoidance', an increasing challenge in a high-choice news environment, where news is often upsetting in different ways. Across markets, four in 10 (40%) say they sometimes or often avoid the news, up from 29% in 2017 and the joint highest figure we've ever recorded (along with 2024).' News avoidance varies among the four African countries, with Kenya reporting a 50% news avoidance, South Africa 41%, Nigeria 35%, and Morocco 39%. The DNR identifies some key threats to traditional media, such as the continued reliance on social media, video platforms, and online aggregators for news, the pressure on business models, attacks on press freedom, and the emergence of AI platforms and chatbots as new sources of news. It's not all doom and gloom for African news publishers, though. In some cases, they can learn from the rest of the world, but in other cases, they have the opportunity to take advantage of the differences in their own local environments. Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa have some of the highest levels of trust in news globally, which can potentially be leveraged to position themselves as reliable sources amid growing scepticism about information on social and AI platforms. - Chris Roper is a deputy CEO at Code for Africa. Note: The Africa launch of the Reuters DNR takes place on Monday, 23 June, (13:00 CAT), hosted by Reuters Institute of Journalism in partnership with Code for Africa. A presentation by lead author Nic Newman will be followed by a panel discussion featuring Ajibola Amzat from the Centre for Collaborative Investigative Journalism, Justine Wanda from Fake Woke and Jillian Green from Daily Maverick. Sign up now.
Chicago Tribune
42 minutes ago
- Chicago Tribune
Dick's Sporting Goods seeks village financial support for Orland Square House of Sports concept store
Dick's Sporting Goods is providing more details about its proposed House of Sports concept store it wants to build in Orland Park, and is telling villlage officials it will need financial help from them to make it work. The chain has a store in the village and is looking to convert the former Sears anchor space at Orland Square shopping center. The House of Sports store, which the chain has opened elsewhere around the country, would be at least twice the size of its existing store in the village. It would feature 'experiential' attractions such as a fenced-in outdoor field, indoor climbing wall and batting cages, a Dick's executive told Orland Park officials. The 200,000-square-foot Sears store, which was an anchor since the mall opened in 1976, closed in spring 2018. Other options, including a multi-screen theater, have been proposed in the past. 'We're really interested in really upping our game here so to speak,' Vincent Corno, senior vice president of real estate for the chain, recently told village trustees. He called House of Sports the chain's 'latest and greatest prototype,' and said the Pittsburgh-based company now has 22 such stores and expects 35 in total by the end of this year. He said the goal is 75 by the end of 2027. 'We're growing fast,' he told trustees. Corno didn't say how much the company would need as far as financial support by Orland Park, although the village is studying creating a tax increment financing district that could aid the project. Corno leads the strategic direction for Dick's real estate and facilities functions across all business lines, including its Golf Galaxy subsidiary. This includes everything from future market development planning to site and lease negotiations, according to the company's website. A typical Dick's location is about 50,000 square feet while House of Sports stores can typically be about 120,000 square feet. The company looks to convert big, empty mall anchors, and has worked with Simon Property Group, Orland Square's owner, on different House of Sports projects, Corno said. House of Sports stores not only boost sales compared with Dick's regular stores, based on square footage, but also support in-line stores in a mall and can attract new tenants to a mall, Corno said. 'These are not inexpensive outlays,' Corno said. He called it a transformational investment and said with purchasing the property and building out the space, a typical House of Sports can cost $40 million or $50 million to complete. While not a new retail concept, experiential shopping has gripped the industry. Things such as a 17,000-square-foot fenced-in field that could be used for soccer and baseball in the spring and summer and hockey in the winter would be planned, Corno said. Inside, a climbing wall and golf driving bays would let customers try out new equipment. Having a House of Sports benefits other tenants in the mall, and attracts new ones, Corno said. He said their customers patronize other mall stores, and the influx of new revenue ultimately flows to the mall's operator. 'All boats are rising with this type of investment,' Corno said. He said the wing of Orland Square where Sears was based has seen tenant vacancies rise since the anchor closed. 'Those mall wings suffer when the anchor is dark,' Corno said. Dick's plans to buy the entire property, including the two-level building which sits on 16 acres, and a vast parking lot. He said the company is working on whether it wants to use both floors or keep House of Sports on the upper level and lease space on the lower level to other tenants. He said it's possible Dick's could use the loading dock and parking lot space on the lower level of the building's east side for the fenced field. 'We're in the very early stage of figuring out what goes where,' Corno said. Dick's looked at trying to reconfigure its store in the Orland Park Place shopping center on La Grange Road south of the mall, but that site didn't work, Corno said. The company also looked at buying land in the village on the south side of 159th Street west of La Grange Road, near Costco, he said. Corno said 'land values were crazy' and that 'we couldn't justify that acquisition.' He said the company, however, wants to see if there is a commitment from the village to help financially before it moves ahead with the House of Sports project. Corno said if the village didn't help financially, Dick's would continue to operate it existing store. He said that should it go ahead with House of Sports, the operator of Orland Park Place would easily be able to fill that space. Trustees said they were supportive of the company's expansion plans. 'This would be a great addition' to the village, Trustee Michael Milani said. 'It looks like a great concept.' 'Experiential retail is where people are heading,' Milani said. Trustee Dina Lawrence called the proposal 'a very compelling business plan.' Orland Park officials are studying the potential creation of a tax increment financing district as an incentive tool for filling the long-vacant Sears store. Trustees passed a resolution in March to allow TIF funds to be used to redevelop the space, at the southeast corner of the mall. TIF money can be used to pay for public improvements as well as incentives for developers. Orland Park is also spending up to $30,000 for adviser SB Friedman to study whether the property, including the adjacent large parking lot, qualifies as a TIF. Factors such as blighted conditions, including declining property values, are considered in determining whether a property or multiple properties qualify as a TIF under Illinois law. The village has said part of the large parking lot hugging the Sears space would need to be used to provide additional stormwater storage for the mall and surrounding properties. TIF funds could be used to pay for that. 'We are at capacity with what we have' now around the mall perimeter, Village Manager George Koczwara, village said at the committee meeting. While Simon owns the in-line store space and common areas, mall anchors own what are called their own pads, including parking. California-based Cubework owns the Sears property, and at one point announced plans to convert the store into a 'co-working mall.' Corno said that Dick's has a tentative handshake deal with Cubework to buy the site. Before Cubework's ownership, plans had been proposed for a 10-screen 45,000-square-foot AMC Theatre along with retailers and restaurant tenants on the upper level of the Sears space. That came before the announcement of the store's closing, and theater plans never came to fruition, partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Cubework had looked at using the interior space to rent kiosks and pop-up spaces to small businesses, offering short-term leases.
Chicago Tribune
42 minutes ago
- Chicago Tribune
Pet hotel dubbed Ritz-Carlton for dogs to open in Deerfield
A luxury hotel is coming to Deerfield and its guests may be among the most exclusive on the North Shore. To start with, they'll need four paws and a tail, and perhaps a well-heeled owner. K9 Resorts, a national pet hotel chain which bills itself as the Ritz-Carlton for dogs, is opening its first Illinois location Monday in Deerfield. The facility features individual suites with high-definition TVs tuned 24/7 to DogTV and Animal Planet, premium shampoos in its bathing salons, antimicrobial play areas, an air purification system and of course, room service. 'We believe in elevating pet care to almost human-grade hospitality, hotel quality,' said Nehme Abouzeid, executive vice president and chief marketing officer of Luxury Pet Hotel Investments, a K9 Resorts investor and franchisee launching the Deerfield location. 'We like to say that we're a hotel, and our guests just happen to be dogs.' Located in a former Mexican restaurant on a Home Depot outlot by the Metra station along Lake Cook Road, the Deerfield K9 Resorts underwent a four-month, multimillion dollar buildout to transform into a luxury pet hotel. Out went the kitchens and in went high-end accommodations for hounds that at first glance, might beckon their human companions to check in as well. It has a glitzy lobby adorned with chandeliers, ornate columns, tasteful artwork and a regal front desk. The inviting hotel rooms are numbered, set off by wall sconces, giving the ambience of a high-end resort for people, who of course, are paying the tab for their furry family members. 'I think that the attention to detail that we put into each resort is so obvious that it makes the customer, the two-legged customer, feel good,' said Jason Parker, 38, co-founder and co-CEO of New Jersey-based K9 Resorts. 'The dogs are very happy customers, because they're in a five-star hotel.' Started as teenagers in 2005 by brothers Steven and Jason Parker, K9 Resorts has grown to 45 locations in 28 states, including the new Deerfield pet hotel. Five locations are corporate-owned with the rest franchised. The dog hotel magnates have certainly elevated the traditional boarding experience, from cage-free lodging options and air purification systems to prevent kennel cough to offering individual or group play sessions coordinated by a trained staff of dog concierges and attendants. K9 Resorts doesn't offer potentially stressful activities such as grooming, focusing on amenities that dogs enjoy during their staycations. Allowing them to wind down at the end of the day with a TV in their own rooms is part of the luxury treatment. 'When they're relaxing after a day of doggy day care, and there's nothing better to have them on a very premium dog mattress, relaxing, having their own private space and watching some television,' Parker said. While the privately held K9 Resorts doesn't disclose systemwide revenue, each location generates between $2 million to $3 million per year, Parker told the Tribune. Meanwhile, the chain is poised for significant growth through franchising, driven in large part by Luxury Pet Hotel Investments, a group with extensive human hospitality experience. Last year, Luxury Pet Hotel Investments invested $10 million in K9 Resorts and secured exclusive regional development rights in Illinois and beyond. The investment group is headed by longtime hospitality executive Alan Leibman, former CEO of Kerzner International, which developed the Atlantis resorts. LPHI has raised $53 million in equity and currently operates eight pet hotels, with plans to build 50 more, including up to 11 in Southern California, 13 in Florida and eight in the Chicago area by 2029. Most recently, LPHI opened a K9 Resort near the Los Angeles International Airport in March. Choosing Deerfield for the first Illinois location, the investment group obtained a 10-year lease on the former El Tradicional Mexican Restaurant in July 2024, converting the 6,200-square-foot building to a luxury pet hotel after getting special use approval from the village. The location has housed a succession of restaurants, starting with a Bennigan's at the dawn of the new millennium. Other buildings on the sprawling Home Depot outlot include a Curaleaf cannabis dispensary and an empty McAlister's Deli, which closed its Deerfield location in April. Accommodations at the pet hotel run from $59 a night in the compartment wing of the hotel, bilevel crates with memory foam beds. The executive rooms run $89 per night for 4-by-6-foot enclosures and the top-of-the-line luxury suites are $109 per night. The 8-by-8-foot luxury suites include a premium couch or Kuranda bed. There is no mini-fridge or Wi-Fi, but each of the six luxury suites has its own 32-inch TV for the dog's viewing pleasure. 'We do put on DogTV and Animal Planet for a calming presence,' said Zack Nisbet, executive vice president in charge of the Chicago region for the investment group. In addition to extensive work within the building, the Deerfield K9 Resorts features a walled-in, 2,300-square-foot outdoor play area with artificial antimicrobial grass where diners once sipped margaritas on the restaurant's patio as trains rumbled by on the nearby tracks. While the Home Depot outlot has not necessarily proved fertile ground for restaurants, Nisbet said the high-traffic location should help drive business to the pet hotel. The pet hotel offers both day care and overnight stays, and can accommodate up to 150 dogs, with family multidog stays. It's located just west of a competing facility, The Dog Stop, which is on the other side of the tracks from K9 Resorts. 'The Dog Stop being across the street, actually excited us,' Nisbet said. 'That's proof of demand, proof that there's a lot of dogs in the area. We knew we could provide an upgrade to the region.' Chicago is a key expansion market for K9 Resorts and the investment group, which is currently scouting out potential locations in a number of areas, including Palatine, Libertyville and the city itself, Nisbet said. Nationwide, the luxury pet hotels have opened up in everything from a former Wells Fargo bank branch to a converted CVS pharmacy. One is even housed in a former Old County Buffet, the now defunct all-you-can-eat restaurant chain which closed its last Illinois restaurant five years ago. While most dogs probably would have been very content to stay at an Old Country Buffet without the renovation, after a lengthy multimillion dollar redevelopment in Deerfield, Nisbet said turning a restaurant into a luxury pet hotel would not be his first choice for the second Chicago-area location. 'This definitely was a fixer-upper,' Nisbet said. 'We had to auction off all the old restaurant equipment. I don't know what our best former use would be, but I wouldn't say it's a restaurant.'
