Blackstone Raises $1.6B Life Sciences Fund, Sees Opportunistic Real Estate Portfolio Value Swell 10%
Global investor Blackstone, which announced plans to acquire American Campus Communities earlier this week, has closed a new fund, Blackstone Life Sciences Yield, with $1.6B in investor capital. Blackstone said that total represented an oversubscription.
The fund will invest in post-approval, commercial-stage bioscience/biotech ventures. It will complement Blackstone Life Sciences' overall investment strategy in the life sciences sector.
On Thursday, Blackstone reported that the value of its private equity portfolio increased by 2.8% in Q1 2022, and its opportunistic real estate portfolio gained 10% in value. Helping to drive the real estate performance was a global portfolio of e-commerce warehouses, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Despite those gains, the investment behemoth's net income of $1.22B for the quarter, or $1.66 a share, was down from $1.75B, or $2.46 a share, for Q1 2021.
Blackstone warned that its deal volume might slow later this year, considering the world's economic and political dislocations.
“It’s hard to predict deal activity, although I would expect it to be lower than last year,” Blackstone President Jonathan Gray told the Financial Times.
Nevertheless, Blackstone had a busy first quarter, selling off about $23.2B in assets, including IntraFi Network and home healthcare equipment provider Apria Healthcare Group, among others.
Other major moves for Blackstone so far in 2022 include a deal to acquire Australian casino operator Crown Resorts; the recapitalization of Mileway, a European warehouse business; and a bid for Atlantia SpA, an Italian highway operator.
The investment giant's assets under management ended the first quarter at $915.5B, up from $648.8B a year earlier. Blackstone's stated goal is to reach $1T in assets by 2026.
As of the first quarter, Blackstone had $298.2B in real estate assets under management, a larger total than any of its other asset classes, including private equity ($268B) or credit and insurance ($266.4B). The company reports total dry powder of $139.3B, including $36.3B devoted to real estate.
