BlackRock to Buy Climate-Change Modeling From Baringa

By Dieter Holger

BlackRock Inc. agreed to buy a climate-change model from Baringa Partners LLP and entered into a long-term partnership with the consulting firm as the investment titan shores up sustainability tools for its clients.

The New York-based money manager said Thursday that Baringa's Climate Change Scenario Model will be added to its Aladdin Climate technology used by investors, bankers and other clients to gauge risk in portfolios. Under the deal, Baringa will also use Aladdin's climate-change offering in its consulting work.

Financial details of the deal weren't immediately available.

Clients with more than $15 trillion in assets are using Baringa's model to avoid risky bets and invest to reach net-zero emissions, the companies said.

BlackRock, which has more than $9 trillion under management, has built out the climate-change analytics tools of its Aladdin portfolio-management platform and is poised to continue to meet demand. There was more than $2.3 trillion worth of assets in sustainable funds world-wide in the first quarter of 2021, according to Simfund and Morningstar Inc.

In January, BlackRock took a minority stake in ESG data provider Clarity AI to add the firm's forward-looking artificial-intelligence data to Aladdin. And last year, Aladdin added 1,200 sustainability metrics and established ESG data partnerships.

"Investors and companies are increasingly recognizing that climate risk presents investment risk," said Sudhir Nair, head of BlackRock's Aladdin business.

Write to Dieter Holger at [e-mail]; @dieterholger

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 17, 2021 06:46 ET (10:46 GMT)

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