BlackRock Inc. is looking to raise more than $10 billion that it would use to buy and hold stakes in companies, replicating the approach of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. BRK.B, -0.43%
It is the first-ever attempt by the world’s largest asset manager to make such direct investments, according to people familiar with the matter. The move establishes BlackRock as a potential competitor to Wall Street private-equity giants like Carlyle Group LP CG, -1.03% and Apollo Global Management LLC APO, +0.48% .
For BlackRock Chief Executive Laurence Fink, it also sets up a rivalry with his old firm, Blackstone Group LP BX, +0.87% . Fink co-founded BlackRock as a division of Blackstone in 1988 but split from the private-equity giant in 1994.
BlackRock BLK, -0.55% has since emerged as one of the biggest beneficiaries of an investor shift to cheaper funds that mimic stock and bond indexes, topping $6 trillion in assets for the first time in 2017. Traditional asset managers like BlackRock and private-equity firms like Blackstone are increasingly battling for cash from the same clients as fees for certain products drop and competition for new pools of capital intensifies.
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
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