BlackRock plans to raise $10 billion for equity investments: Source

BlackRock Inc plans to raise about $10 billion as part of a new business that would take direct stakes in companies, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The move marks a new strategy for the company that manages more than $6 trillion for investors through publicly offered mutual funds and exchange-traded funds, many of which own broad swaths of the market.

A multibillion-dollar fund could put the world’s largest asset manager in more direct competition to own promising private companies with the likes of Berkshire Hathaway Inc’s Warren Buffett and private-equity firms, including Blackstone Group LP,