BBLKBlackRock, Inc.

BlackRock is the world's largest asset manager: it takes a fraction of a per cent, but of trillions of other people's money.

The base is iShares, the largest family of exchange-traded funds. Passive management fees are small and have fallen for decades, so income grows by volume rather than rate: new inflows and rising markets enlarge the base the fee is charged on. Hence a direct link between results and equity market levels.

The second, less visible part is Aladdin: a risk and portfolio management platform used by other managers, banks and insurers. That is infrastructure subscription rather than asset management, and it does not track market prices.

The company also grows by acquisition — into infrastructure funds and private markets, where fees exceed those of passive products. Risks: fee compression as a long-term trend, outflows in market downturns, and political attention to its role as the largest shareholder in thousands of companies. BlackRock pays a dividend.