"We see a lot of opportunity in real estate equity," said Laurence D. Fink, BlackRock chairman and chief executive officer, during a conference call dealing with the acquisition. "It will be great in the long-term. We believe we will be able to expand the real estate equity portfolio." A request for a description of the exact real estate holdings was not answered by deadline.

Fink also emphasized the importance of creating an alliance with MetLife as well as the BlackRock and SSRM having similar corporate cultures. "We believe that this common culture is critical to successfully combining the complementary capabilities of our two companies and delivering the benefit of greater breadth and depth of resources to the clients of SSRM, MetLife and BlackRock."

BlackRock has $314 billion of assets under management while SSRM had $52 billion comprised of $26 billion in fixed income, $20 billion in equity, and $6 billion in real estate. Following the closing of the transaction, BlackRock will manage more than $325 billion for institutional investors, including pension plans, corporations, insurance companies, banks and other financial services companies.