By Donald Jeffries
BlackRock is the world’s largest asset manager, with $6.3 trillion of individual investments under its control. It has been dubbed by some as “the new Goldman Sachs.” Since 2004, BlackRock has hired a large number of former government officials and powerful bankers, leading to obvious potential conflicts of interest. CEO Larry Fink has ties to both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Former BlackRock executive Craig Phillips, now a Treasury Department official, has been leading the efforts to keep the investment fund’s trillions outside of Dodd-Frank regulations.
BlackRock, which also handles Mexico’s pension funds, has deep connections to the former Enrique Peña Nieto administration. BlackRock holds financial stakes in Mexico’s toll roads, hospitals, gas pipelines, prisons, and other infrastructure. Nieto opened up PEMEX, his country’s state-run oil monopoly, to private investment. BlackRock promptly secured $1 billion in energy projects. The son of Carlos Slim, Mexico’s richest man and one of the wealthiest people in the world, sits on BlackRock’s board. BlackRock essentially invested Mexican pension funds into its infrastructure projects. The recent election of leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador may threaten BlackRock’s hold in Mexico. AMLO, as he is popularly referred to, has called BlackRock “the white-collar financial mafia.” However, after meeting with Fink, AMLO softened his tone considerably.