BlackRock’s Role as Fed Adviser Confers More ‘Clout’ Than Fees

BlackRock Inc.’s management of government coronavirus-relief assets won’t produce a financial windfall. But it will boost the stature of the world’s largest investment manager.

The firm stands to bring in as much as $40 million a year in fees to purchase and oversee corporate debt as part of a U.S. program to juice capital markets and counter the economic calamity of the pandemic, according to an analysis of the firm’s contract for the deal.

Generating those tens of millions of dollars won’t be easy. That’s in part because BlackRock’s management agreement with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York ...