BlackRock (BLK) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Wednesday, July 15, 2026 at 7:30 a.m. ET

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer - Laurence D. Fink

Chief Financial Officer - Martin S. Small

Operator: Good morning. My name is Shelley, and I will be your conference facilitator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the BlackRock, Inc. second quarter 2026 earnings teleconference. Our host for today's call will be Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Laurence D. Fink, Chief Financial Officer, Martin S. Small, President, Robert S. Kapito, and General Counsel, Christopher J. Meade. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer period. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star then the number one on your telephone keypad.

If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star two. Thank you and Mr. Meade, you may begin your conference.

Christopher Meade: Good morning, everyone. I'm Chris Meade, the General Counsel of BlackRock. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that during the course of this call, we may make a number of forward-looking statements. We call your attention to the fact that BlackRock's actual results may, of course, differ from these statements. As you know, BlackRock has filed reports with the SEC, which lists some of the factors that may cause the results of BlackRock to differ materially from what we say today. BlackRock assumes no duty and does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements. With that, I'll turn it over to Martin.

Martin Small: Thanks, Chris. Good morning, everyone. It's my pleasure to present results for the second quarter of 2026. Before I turn it over to Larry, I'll review our financial performance and business results. Our earnings release discloses both GAAP and as adjusted financial results. A reconciliation between GAAP and our as adjusted results has been included in the tables attached to today's press release. I'll be focusing primarily on our as adjusted results. BlackRock's record net inflows and organic base fees in the first half of 2026 are vivid proof points of a firm at the center of mega trends shaping the investment landscape across public markets, private markets, and technology.

Wealth managers and institutions all over the world are growing with BlackRock consistently through market cycles, from ETF model portfolios to personalized SMAs, to systematic and income-focused strategies, and in infrastructure and private credit. With $868 billion of net inflows and 10% organic base fee growth over the last 12 months, our results demonstrate that BlackRock is the total portfolio all-weather strategic partner that helps clients look past short-term uncertainties and towards long-term growth. We create and we connect clients to the vast opportunities in artificial intelligence and digital and physical infrastructure. We help them position for success in generational changes to benchmarks and equity market structure. We're driving expanded investor access to capital markets and digital assets.

We're a market leader and high share gainer in manufacturing hyper-personalized, tax-efficient portfolios that power wealth management platforms. We're reshaping the future of retirement portfolios with access to guaranteed income and private markets. Clients are rewarding our integrated platform of asset management and technology across public and private markets. It's what clients want because they're building one portfolio. A world that's more fragmented brings clients closer to BlackRock to make sense of the pieces, to put them together in one coherent strategy for a whole portfolio, and to drive outcomes at scale. BlackRock's a leader at the center of these accelerating forces. An ecosystem disruption means more money in motion and more value to play for and win.

We see strong momentum. Organic base fees are more than 50% higher compared to this time last year. Higher quality organic growth, discipline on our financial framework, and consistent capital return create a clear path to structurally higher margins and sustained double-digit earnings growth. We have high conviction in our free cash flow growth and are increasing our planned level of share repurchases. In the second quarter, we delivered double-digit increases in revenue, operating income, and earnings per share, with all three measures reaching new quarterly records. Our operating margin of 45.9% expanded 260 basis points from a year ago and reached its highest level in nearly five years.

We generated $192 billion of net inflows, representing 8% organic base fee growth. Two full years of above target organic base fee growth underscores that this level of performance is sustainable. It reflects the durability of our client relationships and the diversification of our growth. Turning to financial results. Second quarter revenue of $7.1 billion was 31% higher year-over-year. The increase was driven by organic growth, the impact of higher markets on average AUM, the acquisition of HPS, and higher technology services and subscription revenue. Operating income of $2.9 billion was up 39%, and earnings per share of $13.91 was 15% higher versus a year ago.

EPS also reflected lower non-operating income, a higher effective tax rate, and a higher share count in the current quarter linked to the closing of the HPS transaction on July 1st, 2025. Non-operating results for the quarter included $170 million of net investment gains, primarily driven by equity method earnings and non-cash valuation gains in our investment portfolio. Additionally, following Securitize's public listing earlier this July, we hold 7.3 million common shares, which will continue to be marked through investment income going forward. Our as-adjusted tax rate for the second quarter was approximately 25%. We continue to estimate that 25% is a reasonable projected tax run rate for the remainder of 2026.

The actual effective tax rate may differ because of non-recurring or discrete items or potential changes in tax legislation. Second quarter base fee and securities lending revenue of $5.7 billion was up 29% year-over-year, driven by the positive impact of market beta on average AUM, organic base fee growth, and approximately $230 million in base fees from HPS. On an equivalent day count basis, our annualized effective fee rate was broadly flat compared to the first quarter. Client demand for structural growers like private markets, active ETFs, and systematic continues to lift the fee rate on net flows.

Performance fees of $305 million increased from a year ago, primarily reflecting higher revenue from alternatives, including $115 million of performance fees from HPS. Quarterly technology services and subscription revenue was up 13% compared to a year ago. Annual contract value, or ACV, increased 15% year-over-year. We remain committed to low to mid-teens ACV growth over the long term. Total expense increased 25% year-over-year, with higher compensation, sales, asset, and account, and G&A expense. Employee compensation and benefit expense was up 28%, reflecting higher incentive compensation linked to higher operating income and performance fees and higher headcount associated with the onboarding of HPS employees.

Sales, asset, and account expense increased 26% compared to a year ago, primarily driven by higher distribution and servicing costs and direct fund expense. G&A expense increased 17%, primarily due to the impact of the HPS acquisition. After annualizing for the impact of HPS and Preqin, we continue to expect a mid-single-digit percentage increase in full-year G&A. We continue to deliver even greater margin expansion on recurring fee-related earnings. Excluding the impact of all performance fees and related compensation, our adjusted operating margin for the second quarter would have been 46.5%, up 260 basis points year-over-year. Our capital management strategy continues to be invest first and then return excess cash to shareholders through a combination of dividends and share repurchases.

We repurchased $450 million worth of shares in the second quarter. At present, based on our capital spending plans for the year and subject to market and other conditions, we anticipate repurchasing at least $550 million of shares per quarter going forward, higher than our previous guidance communicated in January. Turning to flows. In the second quarter, BlackRock generated total net inflows of $192 billion. Flows were diversified across client channels, product types, regions, and active and index strategies. We saw $178 billion of net inflows in the second quarter. Core equity and index bond ETFs led the way with net inflows of $85 billion and $61 billion respectively.

Momentum in active ETFs continued with $20 billion of net inflows as clients seek performance through a liquid tax-efficient wrapper. Precision added $15 billion as clients used iShares international and sector equity ETFs to express tactical views. iShares ETFs delivered a fifth consecutive quarter of double-digit organic base fee growth, powered by higher value ETF categories such as active and precision. Retail net inflows of $19 billion were led by broad-based flows into our active fixed income offerings, as well as continued inflows into Aperio and liquid alternative funds. Institutional active net inflows of $44 billion were driven by strength in private markets, fixed income, systematic strategies, as well as OCIO and target date offerings.

Institutional index net outflows of $41 billion were concentrated in low-fee index equities. Overall, our institutional channel delivered 9% long-term organic base fee growth in the quarter, benefiting from client demand for active and alternatives. In private markets, the BlackRock flywheel is in motion, raising capital, deploying with discipline, and returning it to clients. We saw an aggregate $15 billion of net inflows led by deployment in private credit, fundraising in infrastructure, and partial onboarding of an outsourcing mandate in private equity solutions. Finally, cash net outflows of $7 billion in the quarter were due to redemptions from U.S. government funds, partially offset by the creation of bespoke liquidity solutions.

Our customization capabilities and scale are driving sustained growth in cash management, with AUM up 10% from a year ago. We see the road to 2030 and beyond as presenting one of the largest expansions in capital markets growth and participation in history. The forces of demographics, growing retirement needs, generational wealth transfer, structural deficits, rapid innovation cycles. These forces are increasing demand for investment solutions built by professional asset managers steeped in product breadth, scale, technology, and a global presence. These forces are expanding the investor base, increasing assets flowing through capital markets, and creating a powerful long-term growth opportunity for the breadth of global whole portfolio solutions that BlackRock's best positioned to provide.

The strong financial results we're delivering today reflect a disciplined execution against our breadth of opportunity. We generated record revenue, operating income, and EPS, a nearly 46% operating margin, and 8% organic base fee growth. We're confident in the durability of our growth and in the opportunity ahead. With that, I'll turn it over to Larry.

Laurence Fink: Thank you, Martin. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining the call. For almost four decades, BlackRock has been built around the conviction in the long-term growth of our global capital markets. The global capital markets are one of the most dynamic engines of opportunity for economies around the world and the companies and the people that power them. The U.S. equity markets continue to climb to new highs. Returns are broadening beyond the U.S. I'm very optimistic on the outlook for global markets. We see great market fundamentals with higher corporate margins and earnings momentum catalyzed by new technology. BlackRock is a direct beneficiary of this growth.