Merrill Lynch Investment Management and BlackRock Merger Complete

BlackRock Inc. and Merrill Lynch Investment Management have completed the merger of their investment management businesses, creating a company that will have more than $1 trillion in assets under management, operating chiefly under the BlackRock name.

Laurence D. Fink, BlackRock’s chairman and CEO, said in a written announcement that the combined companies “have global scale and resources with a unified platform for information sharing that will enable us to help our institutional and retail clients fully realize opportunities in today’s marketplace.” Merrill Lynch has a 45% voting interest and received 65 million preferred and common shares in the merged company. BlackRock is New York-based with offices in 18 countries, and has 4,500 employees.