Larry Fink is worth $1.7 billion. BlackRock's latest deal will make Preqin's founder even richer than he is.
- BlackRock is poised to make a founder richer than its own CEO with its latest acquisition.
- The asset manager has struck a $3.2 billion deal to buy Preqin, a private-markets data provider.
BlackRock is poised to mint a bigger billionaire than Larry Fink with its latest deal.
The world's largest asset manager has agreed to acquire Preqin, a private-markets data and analytics provider, for £2.55 billion ($3.2 billion).
Preqin's founder, Mark O'Hare, is set to pocket a cool $2 billion after tax from the transaction — more than the BlackRock cofounder and CEO's estimated $1.7 billion fortune, Bloomberg reported.
O'Hare owns almost 80% of Preqin through Valhalla Ventures, his family's holding company, per the report. As part of the deal, he will join BlackRock — which had over $10 trillion of client assets at the end of March — as a vice chair.
Preqin competes with Bloomberg's terminal business, offering information on about 30,000 private market investors, 60,000 fund managers, and 190,000 funds. It's on track to make about $240 million of revenue this year, and has grown by about 20% for the past three years.
BlackRock said in a that the tie-up would bolster its offering to clients, bring with it some 4,000 relationships, and give a boost to Aladdin, its portfolio-management software.
"Bringing together Preqin's data and research tools with Aladdin's complementary workflow capabilities in a unified platform will create a preeminent private markets technology and data provider," BlackRock said.
The takeover marks BlackRock's latest foray into the alternative investment world. In January, the index-fund giant agreed to buy Global Infrastructure Partners, an infrastructure investment fund, for $12.5 billion.
O'Hare is no stranger to building and selling businesses. He founded and then sold another financial-data business, Citywatch, to Reuters in 1998 before going on to set up Preqin in 2002.