BlackRock CEO Larry Fink on US Economy, Trump Vs. Harris, Geopolitical Risks (Full Interview)

Happy anniversary. There was that prospectus the 1st of October 1999 where BlackRock went public. So you're 25 years young.

That's great reading, wasn't it? Yeah, it's a really good day for us. It's our 25th anniversary.

It's our day that we are closing the gap. And right around this time we're going to have our 30th anniversary here in Germany. So it's it's a good day.

I'm very pleased that our stock performance is up, you know, close to 11,000% over over that time, actually 20 times greater than the S&P. So the market has changed so much in that time. And it's amazing, 25 years, you know, there's a lot more private there's a lot more credits.

You're gone into infrastructure. I'm not going to ask you 25 years to come will bring. But what are you most optimistic about in the next three years?

Well, I think one of the reasons why our stock has done so well is I think we we understood that more and more of the global economy would be moving to the capital markets. And I think all the things you suggested is just an indication of all the movements towards the capital markets. And I think this is going to be broadly a world event.

We're seeing more and more countries focusing on their capital markets. A great economy is a economy that has a strong capital markets and a strong banking system. We've seen here in Europe historically a strong banking system and a weak capital markets.

That's changing right now here in Europe. But in other countries like Japan, you had the conservative government doubling down their retirement up tax deductibility for for our product, that they have a desire to building out their capital markets. In India, Prime Minister Modi is focusing on retirement to build out their capital markets, to broaden their entire economy.

And I think that's that's the movement for the next 25 years in front of us, a further broadening of the global capital markets, whether that is private debt, infrastructure debt, private equity, venture capital. And I think this is important. And if I look back over the 25 years, one of the strengths that I see is because of the strength of the US capital markets, the US influence in the world has become broader and greater than it was 25 years ago.

And that is because of the depth of the capital markets in all of this. Larry, where where do you find the best deal? So, for example, in infrastructure, if you look at the closure of JP, it's today, this massive play.

What does it mean for integration? What does it mean for actually fundraising for infrastructure? Well, JP is in the midst of closing a $25 billion infrastructure product the old BlackRock are in for a team is going to be raising another 0 billion.

And then we announce a partnership with Microsoft, NVIDIA and MGM. We have aspirations of raising $30 billion of equity and then beyond that, more debt associated when we built out these air data centers. So so to me, this is the dawning of infrastructure.

When I look around the world today, I see the inadequacies of infrastructure in almost every country. So we need to be decarbonized and we need to be digitizing, We need to be moving forward. We need to be building out more and more.

And I think this is one of the big issues. As I wrote in an editorial a few months back in the FTA and I spoke with the G7, I spoke about every economy needs to focus on growth. There's too much focus on should we lower taxes, should we raise taxes, not enough?

How do we stimulate growth? And I think infrastructure is a major component of how we stimulate growth. And we don't because of the breadth of the capital market, we don't have to rely on federal spending or state spending.

There is enough capital in the private sector that will be able to fund these new projects. And so to me, this is the dawning of the new reality that we're going to see broader broadening of public and private investing for infrastructure. Is there a worry that it becomes quite political?

So there are a couple of projects, Malaysia and Minnesota, that have been politicized. Is there a danger that infrastructure becomes a new ESG? I see a very different outcome.

This is helping government build out their infrastructure. There is no question there may be one project or another project that may be politicized for one reason or another. But overall, in my conversations with politicians worldwide, they know they're in need of more private capital.

So I dearly hope it's not politicized. If it's politicized in one location, it means money going to seek another safer spot. And so you always have those type of risk.

But capital is free moving and capital is going to be seeking a safe, sound investment. You know, we are the largest retirement manager in the world. Our job is of try to be finding investments on behalf of our retirees to find safe outcomes over a long period of time.

So if there is a an event that politicized, that money will leave and many will seek another destination. Where does the smart money stay away from? Is there anywhere in the markets where either price to perfection or it's too risky?

I know we talk about commercial real estate markets move up and down. You always see you mentioned like commercial real estate. You see too much money moving in 1 to 1 area.

Then it then it runs away from it. I think that's that's what markets do. They we test the outer boundaries of pricing and it becomes maybe a level in which that we don't find it's a great outcome for a long term investing.

And then money moves to another another destination. I think that's a natural movement. So I'm not worried about one area versus another.

The one other thing that I think everybody asks me is, you know, is a market so pricey and yet all this geopolitical issues, I would argue today because of the the expansion of the global capital markets, we're diffusing more risk than ever. There is actually less systemic risk today than ever before. You mentioned private credit.

Private credit is chiefly matching a liability and an asset together. It's not leveraging 8 to 1 like in a banking system. That's a good example of diffusing some systemic risk.

But as more and more capitals broadening out how they invest, where they invest, that actually reduces less concentration in one area. Of course, we've seen in especially in cities, a decline in commercial real estate. But that's a natural process.

And and but there's nothing systemic about it. You may lose money on one building, but you're moving into other destinations like data centers. You're moving into different cities that may have rising population growth, but, you know, you can't fight demographics.

So there are some cities that are shrinking. Obviously, commercial real estate in those cities are going to be declining with a declining population. All right.

What's your your your play in private credit? How much bigger do you want to. How much do you want in the space?

We have large aspirations as we wrote about it last year, and we continue to be building out our private credit area. And there's more to come. We're very excited about our position.

If you just think about the role of infrastructure and debt. If you think about what we announced with MGM and Microsoft raising $30 billion of equity, but we're going to have to we're going to raise 100 to 20 billion of debt associated with those datacenters. So I actually believe as we move out and building out more and more infrastructure investing, you're going to see more infrastructure or private credit associated with that.

And so that will also represent a great, great opportunity. You know, you have a hyperscale or like a metro, like a microsoft, like Amazon, that you have their credit that you're going to be able to leverage it up and provide returns, stable returns over 15, 20 years, because that's what those leases will be, these data centers. And so you have a great opportunity for long term investing.

Larry, on the U. S. economy and we talked about U.

S. exceptionalism. Do you worry that actually there are two very different outcomes with the US election that could bring the economy in different ways?

Both candidates have in many cases very similar views on making the U. S. even stronger.

Both candidates, in their interpretation of how that may happen, may differ. Our job is to work with any political position. Our job is to be working with the U.

S. government like we're here in Germany, we're working with the German government. There's going to be election here next year, too.

Our job is to be working with societies and building a platform together. And so we're not trying to make any judgments. But but you deploy capital differently.

Under President Trump and under President Harris, A, the margin not that much. I think we over conflate what it means. I mean, I don't think the U.

S. is going to be pivoting that much depending on what outcome. You know, we're not focusing on the day to day movements of markets for folks who are is the U.

S. an exceptional place to invest for five years, ten years, 20 years? That's what we're focusing on.

Yes. There may be moments where you can have a 10% or even 15 or 20% downdraft. Does that represent a major shift or does it represent an opportunity?

And so you have to look at it that way. In most cases over the last 30 years, any time you had a ten or 20% downdraft, you wanted to be there standing by and buying. And those who ran away over a 20 year horizon who have lost a lot of possible return.

Are you optimistic about Europe? So you're one of the biggest shareholders in UniCredit. You're one of the biggest shareholder in Commerzbank.

Yes. Does a combination needs you know, does it make a bit of impetus for Europe? Does it make sense?

I am a very large believer. On a banking and a capital markets union. I think that's the strength of the United States.

Europe needs to do that. I've read the Drghi report because we are large shareholders and both I don't talk about any any any activity about one organization versus another. But tactically, I look at the strength of the United States, and much of the strength is because of the strength of our capital markets and our banking system.

Europe needs a stronger capital market system and it needs a more unified banking system. And I think that's going to be urgently necessary for Europe to go to the next step. So as a shareholder, you don't get involved.

Have you spoken to the chief executives? I, I don't talk about it. And too I don't do any of the voting at BlackRock, but myself.

That's not my responsibility. Let me just say, I speak to a lot of executives on this. I speak to a lot of politicians on these matters, and that's between me and the politicians.

What's your take on China right now? I would've said before these Chinese actions of last week in terms of the massive fiscal and monetary policy shifts in China was going from bad to worse. I think they recognize now that their economy was, you know, descending quite rapidly.

There was a lack of confidence. And I think we're going to have to wait and see. Is this enough to stabilize the I would say, the failings of of confidence.

And as I spoke to more and more executives in China, there was a fear that, you know, we haven't found a bottom yet. Could this be the bottom for China? You know, I think systematically you're going to see more and more companies diversifying their supply chains.

And you're seeing that you're seeing India as a great destination. You're seeing Philippines and Vietnam as great destinations closer to the United States. Mexico has been an incredible destination for more and more manufacturing.

And so that's not going to change. We are going to see a systematic change in how we manage supply chains. I think it taught us a lot of lessons on too large a dependencies.

And with all the disruption in the supply chains that everybody's waking up to, we need to have a more resilient supply chain. Just before COVID, we talked about we need we need to, you know, the most efficient supply chain when you have those issues. Efficiencies didn't work and we had real big disruptions.

And every company is focusing on a more a broadening, a more diversified supply chain so you don't have these type of disruption. And that's a fit that's going to be a downdraft for China. So that's not that will be continuing.

You seem very bullish about, I guess, the next 2 to 3 years. But there's a lot of you know, there's China, there's a lot of unsettled politics. There's a I, which I know you're playing through Microsoft and data centers.

Is there anything that unsettles you that the world is living through? Look, I think every moment it's unsettling. The war in Ukraine, which we haven't talked about, is incredibly unsettling and very destabilizing for Europe.

The war in the Middle East right now with Lebanon and Gaza is very unsettling. At the same time, as I said, we are broadening the capital markets. And even with these type of disruptions, we're not seeing disruption in the energy market and we're not we're seeing more diversification.

And so the markets are able to overcome some of these. Now, if they create more supply chain disruptions, they create supply chain disruptions for energy. That changes a whole ecosystem.

But right now, I don't see anything that really, to me is going to be disrupting this tremendous momentum. The amount of trillions of dollars that are going to be necessary for infrastructure investing is going to be vital to uplift the economies worldwide. And this is why I'm still, you know, urging more and more economy to focus on growth, focus on how to build out their infrastructure that will lift up the economy and create great jobs.

When you look at the US economy, you're not you're expecting a soft landing. Or is there a danger actually that that we get? I don't see any landing.

The economy is going to continue to grow two plus 3%. I don't even know why we use a landing. Landing last time means it goes to zero.

It goes. You know, I don't I know we use those words. It's really fun to talk about going to crash.

I have. I've been very consistent. We are not we're not going to have a hard landing.

But I don't see a soft landing. We're going to continue we're continuing to move and navigate it, that is. But despite all that, there are segments of the economy that are struggling.

There are segments of the economy that are doing really well. We are you know, we spend so much time focusing on the segments that are doing poorly. And I'm not trying to suggest that's not the right thing to do, but we're not looking at in the holistic way that other parts of the economy are doing really, really well.

Look at corporate earnings overall. They've been very strong and I think they're going to continue to be very strong. We have you know, we do have segments of the economy that are very strong.

And I think that's why I don't know why we talk about a hard or soft landing. We're continuing. We're going to grow at 2 to 3%.

It's the Fed watchers blame the Fed watchers because they're all who are they? I don't follow them, by the way I look, let me just tell you one thing. Right.

Let me just tell you, I think the forward curve is wrong. We're not going to see and I think Chairman Powell said that yesterday. You know, we're going to be patient as we I think the amount of easing that's in the forward curve is crazy.

I mean, I do believe there's there's there's room for easing more, but not as much as a forward curve would indicate. And this is what a flaw in the markets. It's the markets.

Markets move. They have to readjust. And I think yesterday was a small readjustment.

I mean, I don't look at this as a problem. You're talking about the tick tock on the market. I don't spend any time on the tick tock of the market.

I'm aware of it, but I'm not you know, whether it's you know, the Federal Reserve tightened I mean, eases another 150. We'll see. We'll see.

I mean, you know, I think we're I see more policies by more government that tend to be more inflationary than deflationary. And so with that in mind, it's hard for me to see another 200 basis points of decline in short rates.