Blackstone Pays 25% Of BREIT Redemption Requests In January
Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust fulfilled 25% of the repurchase requests made by shareholders in January, according to a letter the nontraded REIT released on Wednesday.
BREIT fulfilled $1.3B in requests, meaning that investors wanted to withdraw $5.2B from the investment vehicle as the U.S. economy proved wobbly and commercial real estate in particular took a beating.
BREIT allows only 2% of its net asset value to be redeemed in any given month and announced late last year, as did Starwood's nontraded REIT, that it wouldn't fulfill all of the cash-out requests investors made.
The company stressed the strength of its assets in the letter, especially its concentration of multifamily and industrial properties in growth markets.
“We remain confident that BREIT’s portfolio can deliver strong performance and a tax-advantaged distribution yield,” BREIT said in the letter. “We believe we have selected the right sectors and geographies and positioned our balance sheet to continue to produce meaningful cash-flow growth.”
During Blackstone's most recent earnings call in January, President and Chief Operating Officer Jon Gray said the company will work through the backlog of redemption requests, but he declined to give a timeline.
“I'd say the other positive sign out there besides improved tone is the majority of the redemptions we're seeing in January and still early are coming from November and December unfulfilled requests,” he said. “So that, to us, is encouraging.”
