By David Randall and Jaiveer Shekhawat
NEW YORK (Reuters) - BlackRock (NYSE:BLK), the world's largest asset manager, on Tuesday said it will cut about 3% of its current workforce, though it expects to have a larger headcount by the end of 2024.
The job cuts would amount to roughly 600 positions based on BlackRock's workforce of 19,800 at the end of December 2022, the last time its employee numbers were updated. No single team will be the focus of the cuts, according to a source at the firm.
Shares of the asset manager are up about 5% over the last 12 months, well behind the roughly 22% gain in the benchmark S&P 500.
Chief Executive Larry Fink in October signaled that the company is on the lookout for acquisition targets in order to increase its growth trajectory. It ended the third quarter of 2023 with $9.1 trillion in assets under management, down from the second-quarter total of $9.4 trillion.
"For the first time in nearly two decades, clients are earning a real return in cash and can wait for more policy and market certainty before re-risking. This dynamic weighed on the industry and BlackRock's third-quarter flows," Fink said in a statement at the time.
BlackRock is expected to announce its fourth-quarter results on Friday. Shares of the company were down 0.5% in afternoon trading on Tuesday.