iShares is a collection of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) managed by BlackRock, which acquired the brand and business from Barclays in 2009.

[2][3] In 1993, State Street, in cooperation with American Stock Exchange, launched Standard & Poor's Depositary Receipts (NYSE Arca: SPY) (now the 'SPDR S&P 500'), which was traded in real time and tracked the S&P 500 index.

[citation needed] In response, Morgan Stanley launched a series of ETFs called WEBS which tracked its MSCI foreign stock market indices.

WEBS, an acronym for World Equity Benchmark Shares, were developed in cooperation with Barclays Global Investors, the fund manager.

[citation needed] On March 16, 2009, Barclays confirmed that it was planning to sell iShares to CVC Capital Partners, a private equity firm that had agreed to pay more than $4 billion.