Blackrock Reduces Larry Fink's Pay By 30% To $25.2 Million

According to a regulatory filing, BlackRock Inc. lowered Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink's total salary for 2022 to $25.2 million, a 30% decrease from the previous year.

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Fink, 70, got a $1.5 million base pay, $7.25 million in cash incentives, $12.7 million in long-term incentive awards, and $3.75 million in deferred equity, according to the New York-based money manager's annual proxy statement on Friday.

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"With respect to 2022 compensation," the company wrote in a filing, "management chose to mitigate the impact of the firm's fall in profitability on BlackRock's broader employee population by focusing the negative revisions to total incentive awards toward senior management."

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Last year's market meltdown in the United States, as well as recession, and worries amid increasing interest rates, took its toll on the world's largest asset manager. BlackRock's total assets under management fell 14% to $8.6 trillion on December 31 from a record high of more than $10 trillion the previous year.

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Yet, BlackRock attracted additional money in 2022, with net inflows into all products reaching more than $300 billion.

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Clients added a net $110 billion to BlackRock products in the first quarter of this year, including bond ETFs and cash-management strategies, the firm stated on Friday. After weeks of market volatility caused by the failure of three US banks, its assets under management increased to $9.09 trillion after the period.

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According to the filing, five executives at the top of BlackRock saw their pay cut by at least 27% last year.

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Three shareholder motions up for a vote at the company's upcoming annual meeting deal with environmental, social, and governance, or ESG — an issue that has turned the money manager into a political punching bag.

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The board of directors of BlackRock advised that shareholders vote against all three. One offered research on BlackRock's capacity to "create decarbonization in the real economy," while another recommended a report on the "climate-related human dangers" of an ETF linked to aerospace and defense.

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Another National Center for Public Policy Research plan would require an examination of the company's diversity, equality, and inclusion policies and their propensity to contribute to discrimination. The board rejected the motion, calling it "unfounded," and stating that BlackRock does not allow illegal discrimination or harassment.

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