Blackrock acquires Aperio for 1bn. Less than a week later, JPM acquires 55IP.

There will be a ton of great analysis on these and Direct Indexing as a whole, but I wanted to call out something interesting.

Exactly one year ago, December 2019, Blackrock & 55IP announced a strategic partnership. After a year of working closely with 55IP decided to acquire their competitor. Really fascinating threads to pull on there. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/55ip-and-blackrock-partner-to-make-the-move-to-model-portfolios-less-taxing-300972304.html

Blackrock is masterful at getting deep looks into multiple FinTech companies and then choosing which one they want to hitch their wagon too.

It's like the Bachelor for financial services. They give roses to handfuls of fintech companies, then propose to one.

This gives them an insane amount of intel about how the market is receiving all of these solutions and how to position theirs.

At this point, Blackrock has more coverage on the advicetech landscape than almost any other firm, MAYBE even @MichaelKitces or @BillWinterberg

The sand has been shifting for a while. Consolidation will continue to happen. Tech is still a majorly untapped distribution channel for asset management companies and Blackrock continues to press their advantage.

I think this is how they ultimately beat Vanguard.

Ok, I'm done.