Is BlackRock Quietly Building a Wealth Management Colossus?

The plan in buying eFront, BlackRock says, is to merge it with the asset manager's Aladdin investment network and create a new investment and risk management platform. (HSBC just inked a deal to offer Aladdin's investment management software to its wealthy clients.)

"Blackrock is acquiring LOTS of 'land rights' for data," Van Pelt explained in a tweet. "This all feeds [its] AI lab in Palo Alto and the Aladdin engine while providing them information advantage vs. competition. Extraction is next."

With $9 trillion invested in alternative assets under management worldwide, there is "an unprecedented need for risk and investment management capabilities spanning both public and private asset classes," according to BlackRock COO Rob Goldstein.

Alternatives "seem to be the only investments providing alpha currently and they are largely illiquid," added Van Pelt.

But the real value to BlackRock in its eFront acquisition is data: "Data is very much like oil," he said on Twitter. "You must focus on acquiring the land rights, then figure out how to drill it and extract."