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Just about any of the most-famous billionaire investors will tell you not to think of investing as buying stocks, but instead as buying businesses. My top name for 2024 is BlackRock (BLK), the asset management firm founded in 1988 and based in New York, advises John Dobosz, editor of Forbes Dividend Investor.

The benefit of buying shares in a variety of companies is that it allows you to access the financial returns associated with a business without needing to possess the means of production or coming up with the required capital to build such an enterprise yourself. This allows talented people to focus on what they do best, which in turn promotes deeper degrees of expertise and ultimately higher profits.

BLK has grown over the past 35 years to become the world’s largest asset management company, with $8.6 trillion in total assets under management at the end of 2022. Headed up by famed one-time billionaire Larry Fink as chairman and CEO, BlackRock provides investment management, risk management, and advisory services for institutional and retail clients around the world.

Last year, 81% of $17.9 billion in total revenue came from BlackRock’s advisory business. Two-thirds of revenue derives from North America, and 30% from Europe. One of the big trends that BlackRock has capitalized on is the growing popularity of exchange-traded funds. In 2009, it acquired the iShares collection of ETFs from Barclays.

Wall Street expects BlackRock’s revenue to grow 7.4% to $19.1 billion in 2024, with earnings up 2.4% to $37.68 per share. Free cash flow over the past month totaled $25.05 per share. At the current quarterly rate of $5 per share, dividends total 53% of expected earnings and 80% of free cash flow.

Here’s some comforting history if you’re worried about your dividends keeping up with inflation: Since it paid its first dividend of $0.20 in 2003, BlackRock has hiked the quarterly payout 17.5% annually over the past two decades.

It’s a notable sign of respect if you’re in the investment business and you attract enough interest from peers that they invest in your company. Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management has been accumulating shares since 2021 and now owns a $1.97 billion stake. Israel Englander’s Millennium Management has boosted its ownership in BlackRock steadily over the past year, and owned 305,000 shares worth $277 million as of the fourth quarter of 2023.

About the Author

As editor of Forbes Dividend Investor, John Dobosz recommends specific stocks and issue new rankings of the 25 best current buys every Friday. These stocks have safe and generous yields, usually averaging 4.5%. On Tuesday and Thursday, as editor of Forbes Premium Income Report, he recommends income-generating options trades on dividend-paying stocks to generate superior levels of income and total returns.

Outside of newsletters, Mr. Dobosz is also responsible for money and investing coverage on Forbes.com and in Forbes magazine. In 2003 he launched Forbes Stock of the Week and made more than 350 picks through 2010 based on fundamental and technical analysis. Mr. Dobosz has been at Forbes since 2001, prior to which he spent five years working with Lou Dobbs at CNN Financial News, where he produced long-form pieces and reported on management, entrepreneurship, and financial markets.

Mr. Dobosz also worked at Bloomberg TV and Inc. magazine. He is a native Floridian and graduated from the University of Florida with a bachelor of science degree in finance in 1990.

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