- BlackRock has named new leaders within its Financial Markets Advisory (FMA) business, which acts as a sort of consultancy to major institutions and central banks including the Federal Reserve.
- The business, which remains under global head Charles Hatami, has created new co-head roles and promoted two senior leaders to those posts, and also named a new head of EMEA.
- FMA’s Americas head has gone to BlackRock’s Aladdin business, a spokesperson said, and his role is being assumed by the FMA group’s new co-heads.
- The FMA business, which is maintained as a unit separate from core asset-management operations, has won high-profile assignments over the years.
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BlackRock has named several new leaders in its Financial Markets Advisory business, a small yet elite group within the firm that provides an array of advisory and consultative services to powerful institutions like the Federal Reserve, Business Insider has learned.
The business has named Brandon Hall and Ben Leax, two veteran BlackRock leaders, to the newly created roles of co-heads. Leax was formerly FMA’s global head of capital markets and insurance solutions, and his previous responsibilities will be folded into his new role.
Julien Wallen, another longtime BlackRock leader, has replaced Roberto Speranza as head of FMA’s Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) operations. Speranza is shifting into a different client-facing, business development-focused role within the firm, a spokesperson said.
Kunal Khara, who ran FMA’s Americas business, has gone to BlackRock’s Aladdin business after the “success of his work” in his previous role, a spokesperson said, and Khara’s role will be folded into Hall and Leax’s remits.
These changes were effective in October, a spokesperson said. Charles Hatami, global head of FMA and the financial institutions group, will remain in his post.
The changes come at an important moment for FMA, which was formed in April 2008, during the last financial crisis.
Back then, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York had asked BlackRock’s FMA business to handle assets of Bear Stearns and AIG, both on the verge of collapsing. The central bank again this year called on FMA to handle an emergency asset-purchasing program in the hundreds of billions of dollars amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The move drew scrutiny because BlackRock is a major provider of fixed-income products, like exchange-traded funds, and could stand to benefit from investors watching BlackRock’s mandate with the Fed and buying up funds they think will benefit.
The firm emphasizes that information barriers between FMA and core asset management operations are in place to prevent conflicts of interest.
There was no process where other asset managers could have bid for the job, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Meanwhile a separate analysis in September showed BlackRock’s share of assets grew in 27 funds that Morningstar analysts said could be eligible for the Fed’s program.
The FMA business has some 225 employees and has completed more than 500 assignments for more than 280 clients across 37 countries since it was formed more than a decade ago, according to its website.
It is a relatively small part of the wider firm, which is the largest asset manager in the world with $7.8 trillion in assets under management as of September.
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