Two Billion Dollars That Does Not Move With MarketsNarrow moat
BlackRock (BLK) — moat facet
The only line in the company not levered to asset prices — and 16% of its growth was organic, not the 31% in the headline.
Strip out the technology business and BlackRock is a pure play on the level of global asset prices. Base fees, performance fees and distribution fees are all percentages of something that goes up and down with markets. That is a fine business and it is a cyclical one, whatever the word annuity suggests.
Technology services and subscription revenue is different. It is contracted, recurring, paid in cash regardless of what the S&P did, and it grew 24% in 2025 to $1,981 million1 with annual contract value up 31%2. In a bad market year it does not fall.
The right way to value it is separately, which almost nobody does. A subscription software business growing in the high teens organically with the retention characteristics of core financial infrastructure would command a multiple somewhere north of anything an asset manager trades at. Inside BlackRock it is 8% of revenue and is valued at whatever multiple the whole company gets.
It is also strategically load-bearing beyond its size. The technology relationship gets BlackRock into institutions as a supplier before it is a manager, and being the system of record makes the firm harder to dislodge in every other conversation.
The honest qualification is the growth's composition. Of the 31% contract-value growth, 16% was organic and the balance was Preqin3 — a business BlackRock paid roughly $3.2 billion for4. Sixteen percent organic on a $2 billion base is a genuinely good software business. It is not the 31% that the headline reports.
Growing 24%, contracted, and indifferent to what equity markets did. In a company where 79% of revenue is a percentage of asset values, a line that is not becomes more valuable each year it compounds.
The reported annual contract value growth includes Preqin; stripping the acquisition leaves 16%. That is the honest measure of whether the platform is still winning on its own merits, and the one to watch if headline growth is propped up by the next purchase.
Source: BlackRock Form 10-K, fiscal year 2025 ↗- ReportedIt is contracted, recurring, paid in cash regardless of what the S&P did, and it grew 24% in 2025 to $1,981 million with annual contract value up 31%BlackRock, Inc. Form 10-K, FY2025, MD&A — total revenue $24,216M against $20,407M in 2024; base fees and securities lending $19,179M against $16,100M, including securities lending revenue of $705M against $615M; performance fees $1,424M against $1,207M, of which private markets $695M against $308M and liquid alternatives $558M against $680M; technology services and subscription revenue $1,981M against $1,603M, an increase of $378M "reflecting the sustained demand for Aladdin technology offerings and approximately $210 million of revenue related to the Preqin Transaction"; distribution fees $1,355M; advisory and other revenue $277M; annual contract value growth of 31% including Preqin and 16% excluding it; employee compensation and benefits $8,446M — FY2025 · publ. February 2026 · source ↗
- ReportedIt is contracted, recurring, paid in cash regardless of what the S&P did, and it grew 24% in 2025 to $1,981 million with annual contract value up 31%BlackRock, Inc. Form 10-K, FY2025, MD&A — total revenue $24,216M against $20,407M in 2024; base fees and securities lending $19,179M against $16,100M, including securities lending revenue of $705M against $615M; performance fees $1,424M against $1,207M, of which private markets $695M against $308M and liquid alternatives $558M against $680M; technology services and subscription revenue $1,981M against $1,603M, an increase of $378M "reflecting the sustained demand for Aladdin technology offerings and approximately $210 million of revenue related to the Preqin Transaction"; distribution fees $1,355M; advisory and other revenue $277M; annual contract value growth of 31% including Preqin and 16% excluding it; employee compensation and benefits $8,446M — FY2025 · publ. February 2026 · source ↗
- ReportedOf the 31% contract-value growth, 16% was organic and the balance was Preqin — a business BlackRock paid roughly $3.2 billion forBlackRock, Inc. Form 10-K, FY2025, acquisitions and equity — Aperio (approximately $41 billion of AUM, February 2021), Kreos (approximately $2 billion, August 2023), SpiderRock (approximately $4 billion, May 2024), Global Infrastructure Partners (approximately $70 billion, October 2024), Preqin (March 2025), HPS Investment Partners (approximately $118 billion, closed 1 July 2025) and ElmTree (approximately $3 billion, September 2025); the HPS consideration was paid substantially in Class B-2 common units of a consolidated subsidiary, BlackRock Saturn Subco, LLC, "which are exchangeable on a one-for-one basis into common stock of the registrant", with 7,614,515 such units included in the fully diluted share count on the cover of the Form 10-K — FY2025 · publ. February 2026 · source ↗
- ReportedOf the 31% contract-value growth, 16% was organic and the balance was Preqin — a business BlackRock paid roughly $3.2 billion forBlackRock, Inc. Form 10-K, FY2025, acquisitions and equity — Aperio (approximately $41 billion of AUM, February 2021), Kreos (approximately $2 billion, August 2023), SpiderRock (approximately $4 billion, May 2024), Global Infrastructure Partners (approximately $70 billion, October 2024), Preqin (March 2025), HPS Investment Partners (approximately $118 billion, closed 1 July 2025) and ElmTree (approximately $3 billion, September 2025); the HPS consideration was paid substantially in Class B-2 common units of a consolidated subsidiary, BlackRock Saturn Subco, LLC, "which are exchangeable on a one-for-one basis into common stock of the registrant", with 7,614,515 such units included in the fully diluted share count on the cover of the Form 10-K — FY2025 · publ. February 2026 · source ↗