BlackRock, the world’s largest manager of assets, starting in September has been sending teams of executives to Kiev to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his officials. In December BlackRock CEO Larry Fink in a phone call reached a tentative agreement with Zelensky to coordinate major reconstruction investment in the war-ravaged country.
A call readout at that time confirmed that the two would “focus in the near term on coordinating the efforts of all potential investors and participants in the reconstruction of our country, channelling investment into the most relevant and impactful sectors of the Ukrainian economy.”
Now multiple meetings later, amid growing visibility, the initiative is being met with a degree of controversy and pushback from some sectors of the Ukrainian public as well as international commentators. This as another high-level meeting took place Friday in Kiev, which included BlackRock’s vice chairman and member of the asset management firm’s global executive committee Philipp Hildebrand.