BlackRock (BLK) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending March 31, 2023

April 14, 2023 7:30 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good morning. My name is Jess, and I will be your conference facilitator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the BlackRock Incorporated First Quarter 2023 Earnings Teleconference. Our host for today's call will be Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Laurence D. Fink; Chief Financial Officer, Martin S. Small; President, Robert S. Kapito; and General Counsel, Christopher J. Meade.

Mr. Meade, you may begin your conference.

Christopher Meade - General Counsel

Good morning, everyone. I'm Chris Meade, the General Counsel of BlackRock. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that during the course of this call, we may make a number of forward-looking statements. We call your attention to the fact that BlackRock's actual results may, of course, differ from the statements.

As you know, BlackRock has filed reports with the SEC, which lists some of the factors that may cause the results of BlackRock to differ materially from what we say today. BlackRock assumes no duty and does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements.

So with that, I'll turn it over to Martin.

Martin Small - CFO

Thanks, Chris, and good morning, everyone. It's my pleasure to present results for the first quarter of 2023. Before I turn it over to Larry, I'll review our financial performance and business results. Our earnings release discloses both GAAP and as adjusted financial results. I'll be focusing primarily on our as-adjusted results.

Beginning in the first quarter of 2023, we updated our definitions of as adjusted operating income, operating margin, non-operating income and net income. They now exclude the compensation expense impact of mark-to-market volatility associated with certain deferred cash compensation plans and the non-operating impact of an economic hedge, which the company began in 2023. We believe this change provides investors and management with a more useful understanding of our core financial performance over time and increases comparability with other asset management companies.

BlackRock regularly reviews our disclosures with the goal of providing helpful information to our investors and streamlining where appropriate. To this end, we also simplified our disclosure of distribution revenue and expense beginning in the first quarter. I'm excited to be presenting for the first time as CFO. As many of you know, most of my first 17 years at BlackRock were spent in client-facing roles. And I can tell you first hand, BlackRock was built for clients.