BlackRock Opening “Snowbird” Office In West Palm Beach

The world’s largest money management company is uprooting a portion of its Midtown Manhattan-based business to new offices in South Florida as the “Wall Street South” movement gains momentum.

BlackRock Inc.’s Rick Rieder, head of fixed income, who oversees 20% of the firm’s assets, or about $1.7 trillion, is expected to begin operations shortly from a new West Palm Beach office, according to WSJ, citing people familiar with the matter. 

According to BlackRock, about 35 other employees will start working at the new office in 1Q23. The people familiar with the matter said more employees from the Manhattan office could transition to Florida in the future. 

BlackRock has considered moving trading desks to the Florida office, as one person familiar with the matter said the office has been referred to internally as BlackRock’s “snowbird office.”

WSJ said BlackRock subleased 5,000 square feet of office space at 360 Rosemary in West Palm Beach. Other building tenants include Goldman Sachs Group Inc, the hedge fund Elliott Management Corp. and Steven Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management. 

West Palm Beach and Miami are evolving into Wall Street South. In June, Citadel Securities’ paid a whopping $363 million for the 1201 Brickell Bay Drive building to shift its current Chicago (a hellhole city) headquarters to the beautiful tropics of Miami.