Oct
08
A BlackRock Salesman’s $2 Trillion Quest in the Land of No Yield
By-
ETF sales to regional banks surge as BOJ caps bond returns
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Lenders’ push into riskier assets has some analysts concerned
Pick a spot on a map of Japan, and odds are that BlackRock Inc.’s Riku Takewaki has been there this year.
The 31-year-old is a traveling salesman for the world’s biggest money manager, criss-crossing the island nation to win a slice of 317.4 trillion yen ($2.6 trillion) in savings spread across more than 100 far-flung regional banks.
Takewaki’s pitch is simple: with lending margins and government bond yields near record lows, banks and their customers need a cheap way to tap the higher returns on offer from domestic equities and global debt. BlackRock’s exchange-traded funds, he says, are just what they’re looking for…
A BlackRock Salesman’s $2 Trillion Quest in the Land of No Yield
