Larry Fink Is Capitalizing on a Seismic Shift in Private Markets

Asset management has two great kingdoms. The purveyors of mutual funds and exchange-traded funds dominate the first and better-known one. They invest in public stocks and bonds, and their clients are increasingly sensitive to costs. Their most popular products these days are passive index trackers with razor-thin fees, often just a few hundredths of a percentage point of assets each year. But the money managers make it up on volume, selling funds to everyone from big institutions to ordinary people putting a bit of each paycheck into 401(k) retirement plans. The so-called Big Three—BlackRock, State Street and ...