BlackRock Beats Profit Expectations As ETFs See Inflows Of $64.5 Billion

BlackRock Inc. reported Wednesday first-quarter net income that rose to $862 million, or $5.23 a share, from $657 million, or $3.92 a share, in the same period a year ago. Excluding non-recurring items, adjusted earnings per share of $5.23 beat the FactSet consensus of $4.89. Revenue increased 8% to $2.82 billion, but was just shy of the FactSet consensus of $2.86 billion. Retail long-term net inflows were $4.6 billion, as $5.0 billion in international inflows offset $400 million in outflows from the U.S. Institutional active long-term net outflows of $1.0 billion included equity outflows of $4.7 billion and fixed income outflows of $1.3 billion, while multi-asset net inflows were $3.8 billion and alternatives net inflows were $1.2 billion. IShares ETF long-term net inflows were $64.5 billion, led by equity net inflows of $44.6 billion. "Both retail and institutional investors continued to utilize BlackRock's iShares� ETFs as the building blocks for their portfolios and in combinations to drive active returns," said Chief Executive Laurence Fink. The stock, which was still inactive in premarket trade, has ticked up 0.8% year to date, while the S&P 500 has gained 4.6%.