FILE PHOTO: Billionaire investor George Soros speaks to the audience at the Schumpeter Award in Vienna, Austria June 21, 2019. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner/File Photo
September 7, 2021
(Reuters) – Billionaire investor George Soros said BlackRock Inc investing billions of dollars into China now is a “mistake” and will likely lose money for the asset manager’s clients, according to an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal.
Last month, BlackRock became the first foreign asset manager to operate a wholly owned mutual fund business in China tapping the fast-growing $3.6 trillion retail fund market. This also comes after the government scrapped a foreign ownership cap in the industry on April 1, 2020.
Soros said BlackRock has drawn a distinction between the country’s state-owned enterprises and privately owned companies that is far from reality, according to the opinion piece https://www.wsj.com/articles/blackrock-larry-fink-china-hkex-sse-authoritarianism-xi-jinping-term-limits-human-rights-ant-didi-global-national-security-11630938728.
BlackRock did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
(Reporting by Aakriti Bhalla in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)
