Bank of America has no plans to fully sever strategic ties with BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan told analysts in Boston on Thursday, [despite] BlackRock's announcement on Wednesday it planned to sell 34.5 million shares owned by Bank of America, in a secondary offering that could cut BofA's ownership from 33.9 percent to 12.6 percent. Moynihan said the relationship between the two companies will extend beyond his and BlackRock Chief Executive Laurence, or Larry, Fink's tenures. "We'll be together for the duration of Larry and mine's career and beyond," Moynihan said. [Reuters]
BlackRock Employee Has Less Than One Hour To Stretch, Mentally Prepare For Shot At Olympic(-ish) Glory (Update)
BlackRock sees your piddling food eating contests and raises you a real challenge. The contender: BlackRock portfolio manager The event: Long jump, on the trading floor The details: "The guy jumped 25 feet in college; market is biased at him going 15 feet and shorter. $2,000 pool so far. Larry Fink has $50 on the guy crossing 15 feet. Jump is at 3PM." While sadly there are no special uniforms involved (the guy is wearing "work clothes and sneakers") and no sand pit, this is still nevertheless tremendously exciting. But first up, men's freestyle wrestling. We'll be back after this. Stay tuned.
Brian Moynihan: There Will Be Layoffs
He's not sure who and he's not sure how (many), but apparently cuts are a comin' in 2016.
Brian Moynihan Is Walking On Sunshine
The BofA chief is pretty much having the best day ever. Not to get ahead of ourselves, but his IT guys are THISCLOSE to registering www.brianmoynihnanDOESNTsuck.com before one of his fans can.
Compensation Watch: It Sucked Slightly Less To Be Brian Moynihan Last Year
No cash bonus to speak of, but the li'l fella did get a bump year on year.
At Some Point In The Future, BlackRock Might Sue Over Libor Manipulation
Or it might not. No one can say at this time. Charlie Gasparino reports: BlackRock has $240 billion in money market assets, much of which is priced off of Libor. Thus even artificially depressing Libor a bit could mean that the firm’s customers missed out on billions upon billions in investment returns. A BlackRock spokeswoman told FOX Business: “We are closely following the investigations as well as related litigation to assess the full implications and possible impact these events may have had on our clients and the cash markets. The implications of the various investigations and litigation are complex and it will be some time before greater clarity emerges.” Indeed, people inside BlackRock say assessing damages won’t be easy. First it’s unclear just how much the manipulation cost fund investors since the evidence so far shows that banks like Barclays only depressed their Libor submissions during certain periods of time, particularly during the financial crisis, when they didn’t want to alert investors that they were being charged higher interest rates to borrow money. BlackRock Mulls Legal Action Amid Libor Scandal [FBN]