Cleary Gottlieb represented the underwriters in two roughly contemporaneous offerings of BlackRock, Inc. securities, a $4.6 billion secondary offering of common stock and a $1.5 billion note offering. The firm has also been counsel to the underwriters of multiple previous BlackRock offerings.
In the equity offering, a subsidiary of Barclays Bank PLC sold $4.6 billion of BlackRock common stock. This offering and a related stock repurchase, taken together, fully monetized Barclays’ prior 19.6% economic interest in BlackRock. Barclays and Morgan Stanley led the underwriters of the equity offering, which closed on May 29, 2012 (including the full exercise of the underwriters’ option to purchase additional shares). One unusual feature of the equity offering was the use of tranched settlement (in which securities are delivered in multiple batches, rather than all at once, at closing) for non-U.S. regulatory compliance purposes.
In the note offering, BlackRock issued and sold two tranches of senior notes with an aggregate principal amount of $1.5 billion. Citigroup, J.P. Morgan and Wells Fargo Securities led the underwriters of the note offering, which closed on May 25, 2012.
BlackRock is the world’s largest publicly-traded investment management firm. As of March 31, 2012, BlackRock managed approximately $3.7 trillion of assets under management on behalf of institutional and retail investors worldwide.