BlackRock Buys Data Provider Preqin for $3.2 Billion

So this was a hard fought for asset to say the least. Frequent. What do they get and why not? Minutes, that's a really great question. And yes, this is the deal that was hammered out just a few hours ago in a space that is one of the hottest in the financial world right now, which is private capital. Private capital is expected to grow to $40 trillion by the end of the decade and BlackRock wants to be in the mix there. Now, one of the challenges in that private capital space we know is data. The data is just not as readily available as it is for private assets. So what BlackRock gets here is access to the 190,000 funds that frequent tracks. Access to the 60,000 fund managers that Frequent tracks. I should note that Frequent is based here in London and also has a history of tracking data for private equity and hedge funds. So in a world where data is the new oil, what we are seeing with this deal just hashed out is that BlackRock has effectively bought a petroleum field. Well, that's a, that's a fantastic metaphor, Charlie, because also if we think about just taking a step back, I mean frequent as we're talking about is a private. Markets data provider, and this is a race in the asset class itself that BlackRock has been under. So OK, they've got the data. What else does someone like a BlackRock who's well known in public markets for things like ETF's for mutual funds, what does it take them to really get in this race and dominate alternative assets? Yeah, Danny. So data is one piece of that puzzle. But it is an incredibly competitive space right now. So this is a place that not just Black Rock is trying to dominate, but Blackstone, KKR, Apollo. And one of the issues that's really interesting when you talk to executives at these fund companies is this issue of education. So even though in the financial space. This is one of the most sought after assets. When you go down the chain, when you talk to financial advisors for the wealthy and when you talk to the wealthy themselves, they're not necessarily aware of how alternative assets work. They're not necessarily aware of how they fit into that kind of 6040 portfolio that a lot of investors are very familiar with. And So what this does for BlackRock is it gives them data at a time when they're trying to educate the consumer, educate the financial advisor, and they can go to them with his data offering as well. OK. And then just very briefly, the banks, there's no major reaction from the banks this morning. I mean, they waited until the market closed on Friday to announce their payouts, their buybacks, they're upping those in size. So, so who's who's on that stack? Yeah. So look, JP Morgan offering $30 billion in buybacks, Morgan Stanley 20 billion, and we're seeing some increase in dividends as well. So you know, Bank of America from $0.24 to $0.26, Goldman from $2.75 to three bucks. Let's see how their shares perform. But let's remember bank stocks have been doing pretty well from this time of year ago, up about 30% on that KBW bank index. Let's see what happens when the market opens.