BlackRock plans to lower the management fees charged by some of its core-strategy ETFs before the end of the year, chief executive Larry Fink said Monday.
Fink hinted the largest ETF manager might cut expense ratios during the company’s quarterly earnings call in July. [Will BlackRock Cut iShares ETF Fees?]
Some analysts had also predicted the move due to iShares losing ETF market share to Vanguard, particularly in funds designed to track broad asset classes. [Bernstein Research: iShares May Cut Fees on Select ETFs]
“We expect to be announcing a new strategy in how we’ll be addressing the fee issue related to these large, liquid, core-type of ETFs,” the BlackRock CEO said Monday at the Barclays Financial Services Conference. “We’re going to be addressing that in the next quarter, probably the early part of the fourth quarter.”
The changes will only apply to some ETFs with lower-fee competition and will not be a “wholesale fee change on everything,” Fink told attendees, according to a Reuters report.