The influence of Investment Companies - thediplomaticaffairs.com

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Economics World October 6, 2025

The influence of Investment Companies

The second half of the 20th century was characterized by economic and financial changes. The world, following the Industrial Revolution, was driven by oil and automotive industries. In fact, in 1950, the largest companies by market capitalization included General Electric, Ford and General Motors. Heavy industry was at the center of global productivity, and this status seemed to continue for a long time. Currently, the global economy is driven by companies from a different sector: Technology. Today, the largest companies by market capitalization are: Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet, and Amazon. It’s easy to understand how the sectors driving the global economy have changed and they are increasingly focused on the technology sector, which is experiencing unprecedented rapid growth. However, like every historical turn, there are those who fall and those who take advantage of the changes to grow and gain influence. This is what the financial world has been trying to do for many decades.

Finance plays a key role in economic transition, even if this isn’t always visible.

In fact, our world is driven by investment companies that manage assets, often much larger than the GDPs of several sovereign countries. These investment companies decide and direct the financial growth or fall of numerous companies.

The largest investment companies are: BlackRock, Vanguard, Fidelity, State Street, and Morgan Stanley. These five firms, combined, manage assets worth over $32 trillion.

In order to understand better the scale of the data just provided for these five firms, their dollar value is almost double China’s GDP.

Currently, global wealth, in terms of aggregate money, amounts to just over $100 trillion. This means that the five largest investment companies in the world hold approximately 30% of global wealth.

It is precisely for this reason that companies like BlackRock are called “shadow banks.” Companies that can influence and decide the fate – if they wanted to do it – of many companies and even many countries.

These are companies with a key role in all the major growth sectors. They have significant stakes in the biggest technology companies we’ve already mentioned. They own significant stakes in the world’s largest banks, like JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America. They own stakes in so-called big pharma, like Pfizer. They own significant stakes in many companies from the most different sectors: McDonald’s, Nestlé, Shell, Stellantis, Walt Disney. They own shares of sovereign debt.

Every time we think about a growing or large company, this company is partly owned by at least one of the five largest investment firms.

Furthermore, we all believe that these investment firms are in fierce competition with each other, like companies in other sectors, and this is only partially true.

If we analyze the shareholder composition of the top three investment companies, we can see the following composition:

BlackRock: the top two shareholders are Vanguard and State Street

Vanguard: the top two shareholders are BlackRock and State Street

State Street: the top two shareholders are Vanguard and BlackRock

As you might guess, the competition between large investment companies is simply a competition between “siblings,” as each manages to benefit from the growth and victories of its competitor.

In a world where it is now well known that influence lies in the hands of those with economic power, large investment companies are the undisputed masters of our planet.

By Domenico Greco

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