LOW vs BLK Comparison

Lowe's is the second-largest home improvement retailer globally, with more than 1,750 stores in the US, after the 2023 divestiture of its Canadian locations. The firm's stores offer products and services for home decorating, maintenance, repair, and remodeling, with maintenance and repair accounting for two-thirds of products sold. Lowe's primarily targets retail do-it-yourself (around 70% of sales) and do-it-for-me customers, but has expanded its professional business clients to 30% from less than 20% in the past seven years (set to expand further with the acquisition of FBM). We estimate Lowe's captures a high-single-digit share of the domestic home improvement market, based on US Census data and management's market size estimates.

BlackRock is the largest asset manager in the world, with $14.041 trillion in assets under management at the end of December 2025. Its product mix is diverse, with 55% of managed assets in equity strategies, 23% in fixed income, 9% in multi-asset classes, 6% in money market funds, and 5% in alternatives. Passive strategies account for more than two-thirds of long-term AUM, with the company's ETF platform maintaining a leading market share domestically and on a global basis. Product distribution is weighted more toward institutional clients, which, by our calculations, account for around 80% of AUM. BlackRock is geographically diverse, with clients in more than 100 countries and more than one-third of managed assets coming from investors domiciled outside the US and Canada.