BlackRock Inc. reduced Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink’s total compensation to $25.2 million for 2022, a 30% decline from the previous year, according to a regulatory filing.
(Bloomberg) — BlackRock Inc. reduced Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink’s total compensation to $25.2 million for 2022, a 30% decline from the previous year, according to a regulatory filing.
Fink, 70, received a $1.5 million base salary, $7.25 million in cash incentives, $12.7 million in long-term incentive awards and deferred equity of $3.75 million, the New York-based money manager said Friday in its annual proxy filing.
“With respect to 2022 compensation, management determined to reduce the impact of the firm’s decline in profitability on BlackRock’s broader employee population by concentrating the downward adjustments to total incentive awards toward senior management,” the company said in the filing.
The US market rout and recession fears amid rising interest rates last year took a toll on the world’s largest asset manager. BlackRock’s total assets under management declined 14% to $8.6 trillion on Dec. 31 from a record high above $10 trillion a year earlier.
Still, BlackRock continued to attract new money during 2022, with net inflows into all products totaling more than $300 billion.
In the first quarter of this year, clients added a net $110 billion to BlackRock products, including to its bond ETFs and cash-management strategies, the firm reported on Friday. Its assets under management swelled to $9.09 trillion at the end of the period, following weeks of market volatility in the wake of the collapse of three US banks.
Five executives at the top of BlackRock last year all saw their compensation reduced by at least 27%, according to the filing.
Three shareholder proposals slated for votes at the company’s next annual meeting involve environmental, social and governance, or ESG — a topic that has made the money manager a political punching bag.
BlackRock’s board of directors recommended that shareholders vote against all three. One called on BlackRock to produce a report on its ability to “engineer decarbonization in the real economy,” while another proposed an impact report on the “climate-related human risks” of an ETF tied to aerospace and defense.
Another proposal from the National Center for Public Policy Research would require an audit of the company’s diversity, equity and inclusion policies and their potential to lead to discrimination. The board opposed the proposal, which it said contained “unfounded claims,” saying BlackRock doesn’t tolerate illegal discrimination or harassment.
(Updates with additional details after second paragraph)
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