Larry Fink and his team are betting on an SMA shop that specializes in tax-optimized, index equity strategies.

Laurence D. "Larry" Fink BlackRock Chairman, CEO

Yesterday Martin Small, head of BlackRock's U.S. wealth advisory business, and Mark McCombe, confirmed that BlackRock has agreed to buy Aperio. Golden Gate Capital and Aperio's employees will sell the Sausalito, California-based shop to New York City-based BlackRock for $1.05 billion in cash, and the deal is expected to close in Q1 2021.

Aperio had more than $36 billion in AUM, as of September 30. So, the deal's price tag translates into 2.9 percent of Aperio's AUM. The deal would boost BlackRock's SMA AUM to more than $160 billion.

The plan is for Aperio to keep its own brand as a separate team within BlackRock's U.S. wealth advisory business, with Aperio's rising co-heads, Ran Lesham and Liz Michaels, staying on. Aperio's CEO, Patrick Geddes, will stay on as Aperio's chief tax strategist and will become a senior advisor at BlackRock.

Dan Haspel and Rob Little, managing directors at Golden Gate, laud BlackRock as "the perfect partner" for Aperio's next chapter. Lesham and Michaels note that the deal will allow them "to harness BlackRock's capabilities and reach to keep innovating on behalf of an even larger base of wealth managers and institutional investors." The deal, Small stated, "will bring institutional quality, personalized portfolios to ultra-high net worth advisors and will create one of the most compelling client opportunities in the investment management industry today."

"This transaction deepens our presence in the San Francisco area and reflects the critical importance to BlackRock of tapping the innovation taking place on the West Coast of the U.S.," McCombe adds. 

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