Who is the 2nd Largest Shareholder of BlackRock?

If you guessed the Government of the State of Kuwait; congratulations, you are correct!

The Kuwait Investment Authority, per recent regulatory filings, owns close to 8 million shares of BlackRock, enough to make it the second largest shareholder!

Thats right, the largest Asset Manager in the world, controlling over $10 trillion in investor assets has the government of Kuwait as its second largest owner. In fact, Badar Alsaad a Board Director for the Kuwait Investment Authority, was recently added to the Board of BlackRock.

At this point you are probably - Who Cares? How does this affect me?

Perhaps it will make sense now...

Here is a partial list of corporations in which BlackRock is the 1st or 2nd largest shareholder:

Johnson & Johnson
Apple Inc.
Microsoft Corp
Texas Instruments
Proctor & Gamble
Union Pacific Corp
McDonalds Corp
IBM
Cisco Systems Inc.
3M Company
Costco Wholesale Corp.
Pfizer Inc.
Starbucks Corp
Carmax Inc.
Amgen Inc.
Qualcomm Inc.
FedEx Corporation
The Southern Co.
Stryker Corp.
Netflix Inc.
Allstate Corp.
Chubb Ltd.
Capital One
Dollar Tree
Lowe's
Verizon
State Street Corp.
O'Reilly Automotive, Inc.
Duke Energy
Ameriprise Financial
Cigna
Emerson Electric Co.
Freeport-McMoRan
Lincoln Financial Group
Western Digital
Zions Bancorp
Tractor Supply Co.
Raymond James
Phillips 66
Cincinnati Financial
Oshkosh Corp.
Dominos
BJ's Wholesale Club Holdings, Inc.
H&R Block
Dicks Sporting Goods, Inc.
Bank of Hawaii
AbbVie Inc.
Exxon Mobil Corp
NVIDIA Corp
JPMorgan Chase & Co
Visa Inc.
Honeywell International
Home Depot Inc.
AT&T Inc.
The Walt Disney Co.
Goldman Sachs Group
Intel Corp
Medtronic Plc
CVS Health Corp.
AutoZone Inc.
Philip Morris International
Electronic Arts Inc.
Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.
United Parcel Service
Polaris Inc.
Sonoco Products Co.
Automatic Data Processing
Valvoline Inc.
Booking Holdings Inc.
Prudential Financial Inc.
Clorox Company
D.R. Horton
Snap-On Inc.
Whirlpool Corp.
Sysco
Norfolk Southern Corp.
Delta Air Lines
Atmos Energy
Cirrus Logic, Inc.
Church & Dwight
Exelon Corp.
Kimberly-Clark Corp.
Ulta Beauty
Xcel Energy
T. Rowe Price
Stanley Black & Decker Inc.
PulteGroup
International Paper
AvalonBay Communities, Inc.
Alcoa Corp.
Cracker Barrel Old Country Store
GameStop Corp.
Goodyear Tire & Rubber
Graco, Inc.

Take a moment to let that sink in...

There are more companies. A LOT MORE... these are just the firms I could find in two hours of researching regulatory filings.

As one of the largest shareholders in so many companies, BlackRock has a lot of influence over our economy, staring with its ability to influence the Board of Directors for all these companies, and in turn, how those companies operate. (Not to mention control over the lobbying budgets as well!)

Next time you look at your brokerage statement, check to see what firm manages the funds you are invested in. You may be forfeiting an opportunity to have your voice heard.