BlackRock may be looking to be a hedge fund sugar daddy

Need money for your start-up hedge fund?  You just might want to chat up the folks at BlackRock -- they're thinking of taking minority interests in new funds:

BlackRock, whose existing hedge funds are overseen internally, plans to start buying into startup managers within 12 months, said Howard Berkowitz, head of the hedge-fund group. The New York-based company, which took over Merrill Lynch & Co.'s investment arm last year, manages $1.15 trillion in assets.

``If we find some really good young managers then we will be on the ground floor and be able to get a great rate of return,'' he said in an interview at the GAIM conference in Monaco today.