BlackRock Gets $6B in Real Estate Through SSRM Acquisition

NEW YORK CITY-BlackRock will acquire SSRM Holdings Inc., the holding company of Boston-based State Street Research & Management Co. and SSR Realty Advisors Inc., from MetLife. At closing, which is expected in the first quarter of 2005, MetLife will receive $325 million in cash and $50 million of BlackRock class A common stock. As part of the deal, BlackRock will receive SSRM’s $6 billion in real estate assets and the firm intends to expand those holdings.

“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.”