BlackRock Executive Ousted for Failing to Disclose Personal Relationship --Update
06 December 2019 - 1:58AM
Dow Jones News
By Dawn Lim
A potential heir to the top job at BlackRock Inc. has been
ousted from the money-management giant for failing to disclose a
romantic relationship with a colleague.
Mark Wiseman, who rose from Canada's public-pension world to
become a protégé to BlackRock's chief executive, Laurence Fink, was
terminated for violating the company's policy.
Mr. Wiseman, together with Marcia Moffat, who has headed
BlackRock's Canada business, had long been seen as a married power
couple at the world's largest asset manager. The relationship that
Mr. Wiseman failed to disclose was with a different BlackRock
employee, said a person familiar with the matter.
His firing marks a swift fall for the man who was the face of
the roughly $7 trillion indexing giant's ambitions to find new
reach outside funds that track markets. He headed BlackRock's
approximately $300 billion active equities business and directed
the strategy for another business focused on private equity and
other alternatives to stocks and bonds.
"I engaged in a consensual relationship with one of our
colleagues without reporting it," Mr. Wiseman in a firm memo
Thursday. "I regret my mistake and I accept responsibility for my
actions."
CEO Laurence Fink and President Rob Kapito said in a separate
firmwide memo, "We expect every employee to uphold the highest
standards of behavior." They added: "When the firm becomes aware of
a breach of policy or conduct that is not in line with our values,
we move quickly and decisively to address it."
Mr. Wiseman was hired in 2016 from Canada's pension investor,
the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. He was among half a dozen
candidates vying for the top job to succeed Mr. Fink.
He aimed high in his three-year tenure at BlackRock but fell
short of aggressive targets.
His recent bid to turn BlackRock, king of the low-fee
exchange-traded fund, into a private-equity titan modeled after
Berkshire Hathaway has gone slower-than-expected, costing him clout
atop the firm. Mr. Wisemen was hired to revamp a business that
actively selects stocks it hopes will beat the market.
With Mr. Wiseman's departure, BlackRock's alternatives business
will continue to be led by Edwin Conway, who heads day-to-day
operations, and Jim Barry, who leads investments. The leaders of
the various active equity strategies will report to Mr. Kapito
while BlackRock assesses how to structure leadership over that
business.
Write to Dawn Lim at dawn.lim@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 05, 2019 09:43 ET (14:43 GMT)
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