Earnings per share were up 24%. Activity is notably accelerating. As Martin said, we generated $76 billion of long-term net flows in the first quarter, which represents nearly 40% of last year’s long-term flows in just the first three months of this year. And long-term net inflows across retail and ETFs and institutional active was actually $100 billion, which excludes the episodic institutional equity activity Martin mentioned. Some of these are public, some aren’t, but over the last few months, we’ve been chosen for a breadth of mandate from both wealth and institutional clients across regions that will fund over future quarters and we’re in active conversations on a number of unique broad-based opportunities, including several large mandates for Aladdin.
There is still a record amount of cash on the sidelines and money market fund balances are now approaching $9 trillion. I think this stems from fear and uncertainty, but it’s hard to achieve retirement or long-dated objectives by holding cash. Clients worldwide are coming to BlackRock for advice on where and how to deploy their capital and in many ways how to help them reduce that fear and putting that money to work. Being a growth company requires continued innovation, lots of investments and intense client focus. BlackRock has invested ahead of these themes, we believe will define the next decade of asset management. I see the greatest opportunities I’ve ever seen for BlackRock for our clients and for our shareholders and I’m very optimistic about the momentum into the rest of 2024 and beyond.
The uncertain backdrop does not mean a lack of opportunities. Instead, we see great opportunities for investors across a number of structural trends with near-term catalysts. These include rapid advancements in technology and AI, the rewiring of globalization, accelerated economic growth in certain emerging markets and an unprecedented need for new infrastructure. BlackRock is connecting with clients to these opportunities and providing them the confidence to continually investing in the long run. In a world where clients are looking for more certainty, the higher coupon, longer duration returns of infrastructure private markets are increasingly becoming more attractive. Demand for all forms of infrastructure is surging around the world from telecom networks to power generation to transport hubs for data centers and new ways of securing energy.
Over the last 12 months, BlackRock’s infrastructure platform has delivered 19% organic asset growth. BlackRock’s infrastructure franchise and our private markets business more broadly benefited from the firm’s global footprint, our deep network of clients and distribution relationships and access to high-quality deal flow. As we spoke in January, we believe the planned combination of BlackRock’s infrastructure platform with GIP will provide clients with access to market-leading investments and operating expertise across infrastructure private markets. We have a deep conviction that this planned combination will be another transformational moment for BlackRock. It will be another example in our long-term history of staying ahead of client needs, positioning ourselves against accelerated macro trends.
I believe this structured private markets are approaching the upward trajectory of their J curve just as ETF did when we announced our acquisition of BGI and iShares nearly 15 years ago. We always viewed ETF as a technology that facilitated investing. Since our acquisition of iShares, BlackRock has led in expanding the market of ETFs by making them more accessible by delivering new asset classes like bonds, investment strategies like actives. As a result of that success, the ETFs evolved beyond what started as an indexing concept. It is recognized as an efficient structure for a range of all investment solutions. First quarter ETF net inflows of $67 billion reflected sustained demand across our client categories, led by core equity and bond ETFs. ETF flows demonstrated accelerating activity with March accounting for more than half of the quarterly net inflows and our flows in the month were 80% higher than the next largest issuer.
We continue to innovate across our ETF platform to give our clients better access to the most diverse range of exposures in the industry. Our Bitcoin fund, which was launched in January was the fastest growing ETF in history and already has nearly $20 billion in AUM. Our active ETF drove $9 billion of net inflows in the first quarter led by our equity factor rotation and flexible income ETFs. These products offer alpha generation with some of our leading investors at BlackRock in a more efficient, more transparent ETF wrapper. Across BlackRock, we continue to scale our product offerings to democratize access to new strategies, increase transparency and drive cost efficiency. To that end, last month, we announced the launch of our first tokenize fund as well as our minority investment in Securitize, a blockchain-based tokenization platform.
This builds on our existing digital asset strategy and we’ll continue to innovate in new products and wrappers all with the aim of providing greater access and customization to each and every of our clients. We continue to see demand for customization with our own wealth business as financial advisers and their clients they serve increasingly turn to SMAs to personalize their portfolios. We acquired Aperio three years ago in anticipation of this trend and organic growth in that business has been over 20% since our acquisition. To further booster our SMA capabilities, we announced our planned acquisition of the remaining equity interest of SpiderRock, as Martin discussed. Among wealth clients, we are also seeking the renewed demand for our high-performing active fixed income strategies with particularly strength in high-yield and unconstrained bond funds.
In the post-QE market, we see more opportunity ahead for active management with greater potential for selective risk taking to generate superior returns. Quarterly active net inflows of $15 billion reflects strength in systematic equity and fundamental fixed income, including the funding of several institutional outsourcing mandates. Across our active franchise, BlackRock has delivered durable investment performance with 82%, 90% and 93% of our fundamental equity, systematic equity and taxable fixed income AUM above benchmarks or peer medium for the last five years. Our active investment insights, our strong investment performance, our integrated Aladdin technology differentiates BlackRock and ultimately drives better outcomes for our clients.
