Will BlackRock buy its way into Philly, after all?

BlackRock Inc., the New York-based mutual fund giant, was close to moving a couple thousand New Jersey jobs to Brandywine REIT's proposed tax-break-rich Cira II tower in West Philadelphia last year when the bottom dropped out of the investment markets, Bank of America (which has scads of surplus office space) replaced Merrill Lynch as BlackRock's major owner, and New Jersey counterattacked with tax breaks of its own, stalling the move.

But BlackRock is still looking to expand. By buying U.S. mutual funds, for example. We hear a lot of them -- Lincoln National Corp.'s Center City-based Delaware Investments, for example -- are up for sale.

He's not naming names. But BlackRock chief executive Laurence Fink told investors yesterday that he's in the hunt for U.S. mutual funds: The slowdown will "force huge amounts of consolidation in our business... Our strategy team is overwhelmed with the amount of institutions that are approaching us... in terms of acquisitions for BlackRock or some form of mergers... We are looking at many institutions at this moment. We have great opportunities to do an acquisition and we will do what is right... for our clients and what is right for our employees."

Also talked about government and capital: "Our industry is going to be more regulated. We actually welcome that... The markets are very fragile, and government is playing a more and more important role... We need to make sure that we preserve our global capital markets and we need to make sure that we preserve our position in the global capital markets," especially since the government is borrowing so much money from foreigners.