FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
This filing, and other statements that BlackRock may make, may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, with respect to BlackRock’s future financial or business performance, strategies or expectations. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by words or phrases such as “trend,” “potential,” “opportunity,” “pipeline,” “believe,” “comfortable,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “current,” “intention,” “estimate,” “position,” “assume,” “outlook,” “continue,” “remain,” “maintain,” “sustain,” “seek,” “achieve,” and similar expressions, or future or conditional verbs such as “will,” “would,” “should,” “could,” “may” and similar expressions.
BlackRock cautions that forward-looking statements are subject to numerous assumptions, risks and uncertainties, which change over time. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and BlackRock assumes no duty to and does not undertake to update forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in forward-looking statements and future results could differ materially from historical performance.
BlackRock has previously disclosed risk factors in its Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) reports. These risk factors and those identified elsewhere in this filing, among others, could cause actual results to differ materially from forward-looking statements or historical performance and include: (1) the introduction, withdrawal, success and timing of business initiatives and strategies; (2) changes and volatility in political, economic or industry conditions, the interest rate environment, foreign exchange rates or financial and capital markets, which could result in changes in demand for products or services or in the value of assets under management; (3) the relative and absolute investment performance of BlackRock’s investment products; (4) the impact of increased competition; (5) the impact of future acquisitions or divestitures; (6) the unfavorable resolution of legal proceedings; (7) the extent and timing of any share repurchases; (8) the impact, extent and timing of technological changes and the adequacy of intellectual property, information and cyber security protection; (9) the potential for human error in connection with BlackRock’s operational systems; (10) the impact of legislative and regulatory actions and reforms and regulatory, supervisory or enforcement actions of government agencies relating to BlackRock or PNC; (11) changes in law and policy and uncertainty pending any such changes; (12) terrorist activities, international hostilities and natural disasters, which may adversely affect the general economy, domestic and local financial and capital markets, specific industries or BlackRock; (13) the ability to attract and retain highly talented professionals; (14) fluctuations in the carrying value of BlackRock’s economic investments; (15) the impact of changes to tax legislation, including income, payroll and transaction taxes, and taxation on products or transactions, which could affect the value proposition to clients and, generally, the tax position of the Company; (16) BlackRock’s success in negotiating distribution arrangements and maintaining distribution channels for its products; (17) the failure by a key vendor of BlackRock to fulfill its obligations to the Company; (18) any disruption to the operations of third parties whose functions are integral to BlackRock’s exchange-traded funds platform; (19) the impact of BlackRock electing to provide support to its products from time to time and any potential liabilities related to securities lending or other indemnification obligations; and (20) the impact of problems at other financial institutions or the failure or negative performance of products at other financial institutions.
BlackRock’s Annual Report on Form10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form10-Q and BlackRock’s subsequent filings with the SEC, accessible on the SEC’s website atwww.sec.gov and on BlackRock’s website atwww.blackrock.com, discuss these factors in more detail and identify additional factors that can affect forward-looking statements. The information contained on the Company’s website is not a part of this filing.
PERFORMANCE NOTES
Past performance is not indicative of future results. Except as specified, the performance information shown is as of March 31, 2019 and is based on preliminary data available at that time. The performance data shown reflects information for all actively and passively managed equity and fixed income accounts, including US registered investment companies, European-domiciled retail funds and separate accounts for which performance data is available, including performance data for high net worth accounts available as of February 28, 2019. The performance data does not include accounts terminated prior to March 31, 2019 and accounts for which data has not yet been verified. If such accounts had been included, the performance data provided may have substantially differed from that shown.
Performance comparisons shown aregross-of-fees for institutional and high net worth separate accounts, andnet-of-fees for retail funds. The performance tracking shown for index accounts is based ongross-of-fees performance and includes all institutional accounts and alliShares funds globally using an index strategy. AUM information is based on AUM available as of March 31, 2019 for each account or fund in the asset class shown without adjustment for overlapping management of the same account or fund. Fund performance reflects the reinvestment of dividends and distributions.
Performance shown is derived from applicable benchmarks or peer median information, as selected by BlackRock, Inc. Peer medians are based in part on data either from Lipper, Inc. or Morningstar, Inc. for each included product.
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