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A quartet of recent high-profile departures from BlackRock Inc. hasn't unnerved investors, but speculation that Chairman and CEO Laurence D. Fink could be next is raising broader questions about the firm's prospects.
Analysts say a lack of any common thread has left them largely unconcerned about successive announcements in June of exits by:
-- Robert Doll, senior managing director and chief equity strategist;
-- Susan L. Wagner, a founding partner and vice chairman;
-- Robert Capaldi, senior client strategist; and
-- Daniel Rice, a high-profile money manager.
BlackRock's size and scale, with an industry-leading $3.6 trillion in assets under management, make it difficult to attribute too much importance to any individual, according to a number of analysts and investment consultants.
Mr. Fink -- who has been the public face of BlackRock since he and seven colleagues left Lehman Brothers in 1988 to found the firm -- likely is the exception to that rule.
Mr. Fink's departure "would have a bigger impact than anything we've seen," said Jason Weyeneth, research analyst with Sterne Agee Group Inc., New York.
BlackRock's stock would take a hit, as Mr. Fink is widely seen as a "strong leader who pulls it all together," agreed another New York analyst, who declined to be named.
Talk that Mr. Fink could be tapped as Treasury secretary in a second Obama administration is focusing attention on his role, even as some analysts have become more concerned this year about the gap between the potential of the firm he helped create and its performance.
Among the roughly...