BlackRock quarterly profit rises 3.8 percent

BlackRock Inc , the world's largest asset manager, reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit, showing resilience in what has been a weak market for many traditional asset managers.

The New York-based company's net income rose 3.8 percent to $875 million, or $5.26 per share, in the third quarter ended Sept. 30 from $843 million, or $5.00 per share, a year earlier.

BlackRock attracted total "long-term" net flows of $55.18 billion in the latest quarter, up from $35 billion a year earlier.

On an adjusted basis, BlackRock earned $5.14 per share, beating the average analyst estimate of $5.00, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

BlackRock's iShares exchange-traded funds business took in $51.26 billion in new money, up from $23.3 billion a year earlier.

The lion's share invested in ETFs went into stocks.

Across all of its products, BlackRock attracted a net $13.35 billion in long-term equity investments. Net investment in fixed income was $36.98 billion, while $1.82 billion went into alternative investments.

BlackRock ended the latest quarter with $5.12 trillion in assets under management, up from $4.89 trillion in the second quarter ended June 30.

Up to Monday's close of $354.60, BlackRock's shares had risen about 4.13 percent since the beginning of the year.

A grouping of the company's peers measured by the Dow Jones U.S. Asset Managers Index fell 4.41 percent.

(Reporting By Trevor Hunnicutt in New York and Sudarshan Varadhan in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva)