Inman

BlackRock raises stake in RE/MAX

BlackRock, a major player among global investment companies, lifted its stake in RE/MAX Holdings by 5.2 percent in the third quarter, elevating its total ownership of the real estate franchise company to 15.2 percent, according to Securities and Exchange Commission documents filed Thursday.

According to quarterly reports and a Schedule 13G filing, which is required when an investor takes over more than 5 percent of a public company, BlackRock now owns 2,559,945 shares of RE/MAX stock following the purchase of 127,191 shares in the third quarter. In total, the shares are valued at $113,532,000.

The filing does not reveal the precise date BlackRock bought the shares. RE/MAX, which first went public with an IPO in 2013, has been performing well over the past year, more than doubling its revenue in the third quarter of 2018. Simplex Trading, GSA Capital Partners  and Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. are among the other investors to raise their stakes in RE/MAX last year.

As of Friday afternoon, RE/MAX stocks were down slightly but still valued at $41.71 a share.

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Despite the large stake these investors now have in RE/MAX, the filing indicates investors are not involved in day-to-day operations.

The BlackRock investment also comes at a time when institutional investors are increasingly focusing on brokerages and other real estate companies. In January, Vanguard took over 9,444,137 shares (or 10.54 percent) of Redfin.

Email Veronika Bondarenko