BlackRock and Tricolor: preferred equity, board seats and the bankruptcy

analysisBlackRock, Inc. is the SEC registrant with central index key 0002012383; its EDGAR record shows that name from October 2024 and the earlier name BlackRock Funding, Inc. The SPV 4 credit agreement refers to two BlackRock financing documents: a subscription agreement of January 27, 2020 between Tricolor Holdings and the subscribers party to it, and a loan and security agreement of August 6, 2020 under which Tricolor Auto Acceptance and Tricolor Holdings were borrowers, with Wilmington Savings Fund Society, FSB as agent. The SPV 4 borrower represented that it was a "Special Purpose Affiliate" and an "Excluded Subsidiary" under the BlackRock loan agreement, the SPV 4 agreement classifies preferred equity as debt, and a change of control under any Tricolor debt document, a list that includes the BlackRock subscription agreement, was a change of control of the SPV 4 facility. The amount and collateral of the BlackRock loan are not stated in the retained documents, which do not include the BlackRock agreements themselves. ^{1 2}

analysisOn September 9, 2021 Tricolor announced a $90 million convertible preferred equity investment from funds managed by BlackRock, convertible into a minority stake, to expand its lending model nationally and grow its software-as-a-service unit, Tricolor Financial. In November 2022 a financial weekly described Tricolor as a favourite of ESG investors and BlackRock's new social-impact fund as having bought a stake in Tricolor Auto Group; only the article's headline and opening paragraph are retained, not the customer complaints it reports. ^{3 4}

analysisTricolor's December 2023 leadership page listed two BlackRock employees among its seven directors: Christian Donohue, a managing director in BlackRock's Global Credit Platform, and Derrick Weatherspoon, a senior portfolio manager in BlackRock's Alternative Solutions Group who joined BlackRock in 2021. A 2023 executive-workshop booklet describes Weatherspoon as a senior portfolio manager of the BlackRock Impact Opportunities fund and a director of Tricolor Holdings, LLC; IMB Partners had announced his promotion to managing director in February 2021, shortly before he joined BlackRock, and Donohue had been a managing director of Tennenbaum Capital Partners when BlackRock acquired it in 2018. No retained record states that either was appointed under the terms of the 2021 preferred equity investment, or when Weatherspoon joined the board, and an obituary of a person of the same name is not linked to him by any record and is not used. ^{1 2 3}

analysisBlackRock, Inc., BlackRock Financial Management, Inc. and the Senior Preferred Members appear as creditors in the Chapter 7 case, according to a commercial docket aggregator's case page whose underlying court papers are not retained. A news agency, citing a newspaper report, reported on November 7, 2025 that BlackRock was winding down a social impact fund that had invested in Tricolor and had told employees it would close its BlackRock Impact Opportunities fund to new investments after Tricolor's bankruptcy filing; the report cites people familiar with the decision, BlackRock's own statement is not retained, and BlackRock declined to comment on its Tricolor investment to the reporters of a November 2025 news investigation. On July 8, 2026 the trustee moved for Rule 2004 examinations and documents from BlackRock, Inc., BlackRock Financial Management and the Senior Preferred Members; they objected on July 29, 2026, and the court held a status conference on the motion on October 7, 2026. The docket entries state neither the objection's grounds nor the result, Rule 2004 examinations are investigative, and the docket does not say what claims, if any, the trustee will bring. ^{1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8}