Blackstone Aims To Raise $18B For Next Real Estate Fund
Private equity giant Blackstone is planning its next real estate fund, which will reportedly total $18B.
That sum would make such a fund Blackstone's largest ever in the sector, surpassing its most recent fund in 2015 — Blackstone Real Estate Partners VIII — which totaled $15.8B.
The investor is the largest real estate private equity firm in the world, with $119B of assets under management in all property sectors. That includes 226M SF of office space, 75M SF of retail space and 300,000 residential units.
Blackstone would hardly be alone in wanting to devote more billions into the property sector. The number of investors allocating at least $1B to the space is going up, Bloomberg reports, citing data provider Preqin.
Blackstone's aggressive real estate plays come at a time when day-to-day operations at the investor are being overseen by Jon Gray, who started in private equity and mergers and acquisitions at Blackstone before he joined its real estate group at its inception.
This year Gray became Blackstone president and chief operating officer, after being in charge of the company's real estate division, which now accounts for half of Blackstone’s earnings.
Ken Caplan and Kathleen McCarthy, both longtime executives in Blackstone’s real estate group, succeeded Gray as global co-heads of real estate.
Overall, Blackstone has plans to double its assets to $800B over the next five years, not only through massive real estate acquisitions, but also by expanding its investments into new areas, such as a new infrastructure fund.
