DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE: Black Rock, Vanguard and now, State Street – one big happy family; NOT!
You have heard me talk about Black Rock. And Vanguard. And now, ladies and gentleman let me introduce you to the third part of the puzzle, State Street Corporation.
Here is a little rabbit hole for you to dive down and see where you come out.
State Street Corporation is a “leading specialist in servicing sophisticated investors worldwide.”
The company is also touting climate change as big business.
Remember what I told you, the CNN employee who said climate change is the next big narrative for lock-down – well, if these preposterous 15-minute cities don’t lock it all down first.
The gate is closing my friends, and I hope you are practicing the word “no” daily.
BlackRock and Vanguard are two of the big three passive fund asset management firms – now we know State Street is the third.
And, lo and behold, State Street is owned by BlackRock – whose largest shareholder is Vanguard.
In 2004, State Street Research & Management Co., one of the nation’s oldest mutual-fund firms, was bought by BlackRock Inc. for $375 million.
Look up the term ESG too: Environmental Social Governance.
That is a financial rabbit hole above my paygrade, but in 2021, the Wall Street Journal reported BlackRock was pushing the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to adopt rules about private companies publicly disclosing their climate impact.
BlackRock, also according to CNBC in 2021 launched a set of mutual funds and investment products for Chinese consumers. The company was the “first foreign-owned company to operate a wholly owned business in China’s mutual fund industry.”
In 2021 BlackRock’s China equity fund had raised 6.68 billion yuan from more than 111,000 investors.
Follow the money!
In 2018 it was reported BlackRock was “the world’s largest investor in coal plant developers, holding shares worth $11 billion among 56 coal plant developers. The company also owned more oil, gas, and thermal coal reserves than any other investor with total reserves 9.5 gigatonnes of CO2 emissions/30 percent of total energy-related emissions from 2017.
Even more to the point, in 2020 BlackRock had the power over 45 Central Banks and 19 National Pension Funds.
Back to the nepotism
The largest shareholder of State Street Corporation is Vanguard along with SSgA Funds Management (i.e. State Street Corporation) and Black Rock Fund Advisors – nothing to see here.
Let’s look at BlackRock’s holdings; Walmart, with ownership of 96,570,711 shares of Walmart Inc valued at $12,525,224,000.
Netflix’s top shareholder is Vanguard, after which comes BlackRock Fund Advisors, Fidelity Management and – you guessed it – State Street Corps’ SSgA Funds Management.
Disney? Yep. As of November 2022, Vanguard Group Inc. and BlackRock Inc. were two of the largest investors.
BlackRock owns 171 million shares of Tesla, accounting for 5.4% of the company’s shares as of 2022.
Vanguard Group, Inc. is currently McDonald’s largest shareholder with 9.1% of shares outstanding. BlackRock, Inc. is the second largest shareholder and State Street Global Advisors, Inc. comes in third as of August 2022.
PayPal? That company’s largest shareholder is The Vanguard Group, Inc., with BlackRock, Inc. and State Street Global Advisors, Inc. second and third as of October 2022.
Johnson & Johnson (yes, the pharmaceutical company that brought us the jab). Vanguard Group, Inc., has 8.99% shares, SSgA Funds Management, Inc. (State Street Corp.) 5.43% and BlackRock, Inc. with 4.84%.
Coca-Cola as of December 2022 had its largest shareholder listed as Berkshire Hathaway Inc., followed by The Vanguard Group, Inc. as the second largest shareholder – followed by BlackRock, Inc.
Now we all know Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is headed by billionaire investor and CEO Warren Buffett, with his arms in insurance, freight rail transportation, energy generation and distribution, manufacturing, and retailing as of January 2023.
I didn’t have to go to deep however to discover that – you guessed it – the top institutional shareholders are Vanguard Group owning 145.9 million class B shares, BlackRock Inc. owning 109.9 million class B shares of Berkshire Hathaway, and…
Drumroll, PLEASE!
State Street Corp. owning 76.5 million class B shares of Berkshire Hathaway.
What about PepsiCo?
Well, that largest shareholder is The Vanguard Group, Inc. – BlackRock, Inc. is the second largest shareholder and State Street Global Advisors, Inc. the third as of October 2022.
Amazon anyone? BlackRock holds 6% of Amazon’s shares, the third largest shareholder with 29 million Amazon shares at a market value of $96 billion.
BlackRock is a proud top shareholder for Starbucks too – with 82 million shares at $10 billion.
FedEx? Well, BlackRock has 16,526,633 shares in that corporation.
Beyond the list above, BlackRock’s top holdings are Exxon Mobile; Apple, Inc.; Chevron Corp.; Microsoft Corporation; General Electric; International Business Machines; Pfizer Inc.; AT & T, Inc; Johnson & Johnson and JP Morgan Chase & Co. (the largest bank in the US).
What about the bank that owns BlackRock? Well, PNC controls more than 80 percent of the voting interest in BlackRock since 1995.
The largest shareholder of PNC is, you guessed it The Vanguard group with 85.48% of the total shares outstanding. And, PNC Mortgage and Wells Fargo Home Mortgage have a joint venture in the mortgage business.
BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street it is fair to say own just about everything.
If these are your go-to stores, banks, services – well, that means they own you too.
Food for thought – the rabbit hole goes deeper – I just don’t have the space this week.
Rita Cook is a freelance writer for The Ellis County Press. She can be reached at rcook13@earthlink.net.