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☆ Blackstone's first-quarter earnings plunge on real estate slowdown
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

NEW YORK, April 20 (Reuters) - Blackstone Inc (BX.N), the biggest manager of assets such as private equity and real estate, said on Thursday its first-quarter distributable earnings fell 36% year-on-year, as a weak property market stopped it from cashing out on some holdings. The slowdown in commercial real estate — triggered by higher interest rates, fears about an economic slowdown and businesses consolidating office space in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic — has also prevented Blackstone from selling assets for top dollar in many of its real estate funds. Distributable earnings, which represent the cash used for shareholder dividends, fell to $1.25 billion in the first quarter from $1.94 billion a year earlier, Blackstone said. Blackstone's fee-related earnings fell 9% to $1.04 billion, as fewer asset sales led to lower performance fees. Blackstone's opportunistic and core real estate funds depreciated by 0.4% and 1.6% over the first quarter, respectively.

☆ Fintech dealmaking is ready for prime time
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-10 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

It seems the time has finally come for some M&A, and one group is ready to go. I wrote last week about how a couple of blockbuster deals could kick off a spree of dealmaking after a long drought. Insider's Paige Hagy and Bianca Chan identified a bunch of acquisition targets in a segment of the market that is in need of some deals: fintech. One could make the point that every industry has a backlog of potential deals, but fintech seems particularly ripe. For the complete rundown on the 16 fintech and consumer-facing deals JPMorgan has made since 2020, click here.

☆ The UFC-WWE deal could be the boost the M&A market needs to get back into gear
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-04 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Citigroup, JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America were among the banks advising on the deal. Earlier this year, some pegged the merger market getting back into the swing of things by mid-year. When you think about it, the WWE-UFC deal might be the best way to get the market going again. Fight for media rights: Both UFC and WWE have streaming deals with ESPN and NBCUniversal's Peacock, respectively. The crypto community is now pitching itself as playing a key role in AI development thanks to its decentralized nature.

☆ Big real estate landlords are finally starting to decarbonize, creating an $18 trillion market that this Blackstone portfolio company plans to profit from at every turn
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-03 | by ( Alex Nicoll | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

The Blackstone portfolio company Legence wants to be a one-stop shop for landlords. A Real Estate Board of New York study found that the total penalties could top $213 million. Its ICS became the strategic planner, its CMTA, which designed the first net-zero school in the United States, designed the upgrades, and its Gilbert Mechanical installed the new heating, cooling, ventilation, and lighting hardware. How to do itIt may still be a challenge to coordinate decarbonization processes, which don't come naturally to large-scale real-estate operators, Boland said. Legence plans to grow the business's geographic scope and increase its depth in current markets, including Colorado and California, Sprau said.

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☆ SVB's collapse was fueled by 'people on iPhones' and won't spread across the US banking sector, Blackstone CEO says
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( George Glover | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Silicon Valley Bank failed because of the "interim issue" of high interest rates, Steve Schwarzman said. Rapid withdrawals "by people on iPhones" also fueled SVB's collapse, he told Bloomberg Thursday. "The banking system is not in any type of conventional crisis," the billionaire businessman said. Silicon Valley Bank's collapse earlier this month sparked a selloff in stocks of regional US banks, fueling fears that its failure would develop into a broader crisis. Read more: Silicon Valley Bank's spectacular implosion shows how digital banking can decimate a lender in 24 hours

☆ Events software provider Cvent accepts Blackstone's $4.6 bln deal
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-14 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

A rout in tech stocks last year shrank company valuations, making them enticing targets for private equity suitors. Cvent was valued at $5.3 billion in 2021 when Vista, which had acquired it for $1.65 billion a few years ago, took it public in a merger with a blank-check acquisition company. Blackstone's offer price of $8.50 per share, gives Cvent an equity value of $4.15 billion and represents a premium of about 29% from Jan. 30, a day before media reports of a potential deal surfaced. Cvent on Tuesday posted a loss of $100.3 million in 2022, wider than $86.1 million it reported a year earlier. Blackstone said it has received a $1 billion credit facility as part of the financing for the deal.

☆ Blackstone defaults on Nordic mortgage-backed bond
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

"This debt relates to a small portion of the Sponda portfolio. We are disappointed that the Servicer has not advanced our proposal," Blackstone said in an emailed statement on Thursday. "We continue to have full confidence in the core Sponda portfolio and its management team," the company added. The bond, which was underwritten by Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, was originally secured against 63 mostly office buildings in Finland. Blackstone's $71 billion unlisted real estate income trust (BREIT) has also been in hot water.

☆ Blackstone defaults on $562 mln Nordic property-backed CMBS - Bloomberg News
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

March 2 (Reuters) - Blackstone Inc (BX.N) has defaulted on a 531 million euro ($562.5 million) bond backed by a portfolio of offices and stores owned by Finnish company Sponda Oy, Bloomberg News reported, as rising interest rates hit European property values. "This debt relates to a small portion of the Sponda portfolio. We are disappointed that the Servicer has not advanced our proposal," Blackstone said in an emailed statement on Thursday. "We continue to have full confidence in the core Sponda portfolio and its management team," the company added. Blackstone's $71 billion unlisted real estate income trust (BREIT) has also been in hot water.

☆ Bridgewater's new executive team is already making big changes. But was it all part of Ray Dalio's master plan?
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

On tap, we've got stories on the top VCs in Texas, more headaches for Blackstone's BREIT, and why boomers stink. Maybe it's just the fear of facing your own mortality and realizing that life, in fact, will go on without you. As Rebecca Ungarino reports, the world's largest hedge fund is making a slew of new changes less than six months after billionaire founder Ray Dalio stepped aside. Bridgewater, which was founded in 1975 from Dalio's two-bedroom apartment, is arguably just as well known for its culture as its size. Edited by Jeffrey Cane (tweet @jeffrey_cane) in New York and Hallam Bullock (tweet @hallam_bullock) and Nathan Rennolds (tweet @ncrennolds) in London.

Feb 25 (Reuters) - Blackstone Inc (BX.N) Chief Executive Officer Steve Schwarzman took home about $1.26 billion in pay and dividends for 2022, a regulatory filing showed. Schwarzman received more than $1 billion in dividends from his Blackstone shares and $253.1 million in compensation, filing showed on Friday. Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) slashed compensation for CEO David Solomon by 29% to $25 million for 2022, while JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) CEO Jamie Dimon's total compensation was unchanged at $34.5 million. Schwarzman owns about 230 million shares in Blackstone according to a filing from February, and the company paid $4.40 in annual dividend, filings showed. Blackstone ended the quarter with $974.7 billion of total assets under management and declared a quarterly dividend of 91 cents per share.

☆ Exclusive: Events software vendor Cvent rebuffs $3.9 bln Blackstone bid-sources
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( Milana Vinn | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Feb 24 (Reuters) - Cvent Holding Corp (CVT.O), a U.S. software provider that facilitates in-person and virtual meetings, has rejected a $3.9 billion acquisition offer from buyout firm Blackstone Inc (BX.N), people familiar with the matter said on Friday. Blackstone is taking a break from the negotiations after Cvent rejected its $8-per-share offer as too low, the sources said. Shares of Cvent, which is controlled by private equity firm Vista Equity Partners Management LLC, had ended trading on Thursday at $7.64. Cvent, Blackstone and Vista Equity declined to comment. Cvent shares have since dropped due to concerns that an economic slowdown, brought about by the U.S. Federal Reserve's higher interest rates to fight inflation, will lower demand for conferences and events that drive the company's business.

☆ Exclusive: Blackstone set to raise as much as $10 billion for tactical opportunities
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-23 | by ( Chibuike Oguh | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

NEW YORK, Feb 23 (Reuters) - Blackstone Inc (BX.N), the world's largest private equity firm, is set to raise as much as $10 billion for its tactical opportunities strategy, which gives it versatility to invest in a range of assets, people familiar with the matter told Reuters. Blackstone has amassed about $5 billion for the Blackstone Tactical Opportunities Fund IV, which was initially aiming to raise only $4 billion, Reuters previously reported. Blackstone has raised three previous tactical opportunities funds that cumulatively collected about $16.4 billion from investors since the first of them was first launched in 2012. The $6.7 billion Blackstone Tactical Opportunities Fund II and the Tactical Opportunities Fund III, which raised $4.09 billion, had generated a net internal rate of return of 14.1% and 11.7%, respectively, as of June last year, according to the California Public Employees' Retirement System. Blackstone's tactical opportunities division has about $34 billion in assets under management.

☆ Blackstone's Ike leaves to start new investment firm
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( Chibuike Oguh | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

NEW YORK, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Melvin Ike, a managing director in Blackstone Inc's (BX.N) tactical opportunities group, has resigned to start his own investment firm, the private equity firm told Reuters. Ike's resignation was announced during a meeting of Blackstone's tactical opportunities fund investors held last week in New York, the firm said in a statement on Tuesday. Ike's transactions for Blackstone's tactical opportunities unit include the sale of a majority stake in Wisconsin-based home improvement lender Aqua Finance for $1 billion to Apollo Global Management (APO.N) in 2021. He also led Blackstone's acquisition of a majority stake in collectibles authentication firm Certified Collectibles Group as well as the minority investments in digital marketing firm Recurrent Ventures and Cybersecurity firm Geocomply. Blackstone's tactical opportunities unit, which is run by David Blitzer, invests in assets that typically fall outside the scope of the firm's other funds, from timber and mines to oil tankers and satellites.

☆ Wall Street has purchased hundreds of thousands single-family homes since the Great Recession. Here's what that means for rental prices
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-21 | by ( Carlos Waters | In Carloswaters | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Institutional investors may control 40% of U.S. single-family rental homes by 2030, according to MetLife Investment Management. And a group of Washington, D.C., lawmakers believe that Wall Street needs to back away from the market. Khanna is the lead author of the Stop Wall Street Landlords Act of 2022. "What's outrageous is your tax dollars are helping Wall Street buy up single-family homes," he said in an interview with CNBC. Since the early 2010s, Tricon Residential, Progress Residential, American Homes 4 Rent, Invitation Homes have each bought thousands of homes.

☆ Blackstone says India top Asian market, eyes infra investments
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-14 | by ( M. Sriram | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

MUMBAI, Feb 14 (Reuters) - India will continue to be Blackstone Inc's (BX.N) biggest market in Asia and the private equity giant may consider infrastructure investments there in the future, a top company executive said on Tuesday. Blackstone said it manages assets worth $50 billion in India, including in private equity and real estate. Private equity deals in India totalled $32 billion last year, a 27% drop from 2021. Even as Blackstone remains bullish on India, Gray said more certainty around tax and capital market laws will help increase foreign investments in India. China's share in Asia's total private equity deal value dropped to 28% in 2022 from 41% in 2021, the data showed.

☆ Sen. Kyrsten Sinema pulls in cash from Wall Street, real estate titans as she mulls reelection bid
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( Brian Schwartz | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +9 min

Real estate and private equity leaders, who have long helped to fill Sinema's campaign coffers, contributed to a healthy cash haul for the senator in the final months of last year. At the lunch, Sinema discussed the incoming Congress and how the tight margins in both chambers could create gridlock, according to attendees. Sinema's campaign had already seen more than $2 million from the securities and investment industry since the 2018 election cycle. The Sinema campaign saw dozens of contributions totaling over $145,000 from people who work at Apollo Global Management, another giant private equity firm, since October. Suzanne Clark, CEO of the massive pro-business lobbying group U.S. Chamber of Commerce, also donated $1,000 to Sinema's campaign on Dec. 31, the new FEC filing shows.

☆ Blackstone's real-estate business is totally fine, so please stop asking about it
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Blackstone's real-estate business is literally fine, everyone. Yes, the private-equity giant had to limit investors from pulling their money out from the $69 billion Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust (BREIT) in December. And yes, it's also true that Blackstone had to tell investors again on Wednesday that investors were pulling money from BREIT. Murphy, an executive at Standard Investments, serving as Blackstone's new COO of corporate private equity and Heather von Zuben's appointment as COO of Blackstone's credit arm. As much as I enjoy poking fun at Blackstone, Schwarzman and Gray aren't necessarily wrong, to a degree.

☆ Blackstone is stepping up evictions of hundreds of tenants across the US as a top exec vows 'cash-flow growth'
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-01 | by ( Robert Davis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

It's back to business as usual: An exec said he had confidence in the firm's "cash-flow growth." About one-fifth of those holdings are tied up in an investment vehicle known as the Blackstone Real Estate Investment Trust, or BREIT. Blackstone's real-estate portfolio is outperforming competitorsThe news of Blackstone's increasing eviction efforts came days after the company announced its fourth-quarter earnings. For example, what Blackstone calls its "opportunistic" real-estate portfolio appreciated by more than 7% during 2022 in one of the most challenging markets in recent memory. The firm's core real-estate portfolio gained more than 10% in value during 2022.

☆ Meet the Blackstone execs taking on new roles across real estate, private equity, and credit as the firm shakes up leadership
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-01 | by ( Rebecca Ungarino | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Blackstone is making changes to its real estate, private equity, and credit leadership. Murphy will replace the longtime Blackstone executive Robert Ramsauer, who is leaving the firm after 19 years. It is also shuffling the leadership of its credit business and its real estate business that includes Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust, known as BREIT, a high-profile fund for the firm that has recently faced redemption requests. The firm's leadership changes extend to its credit business. von Zuben's shift marks the second leadership change in the credit business, a particularly competitive area for private investment firms, that Blackstone has announced this year.

☆ Blackstone's earnings fall 41% as assets sales slump
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( Chibuike Oguh | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

NEW YORK, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Blackstone Inc (BX.N) said on Thursday its fourth quarter distributable earnings fell 41% year-on-year as the world's largest manager of alternative assets cashed out fewer investments across its key portfolios. Distributable earnings, which represents the cash used to pay dividends to shareholders, fell to $1.3 billion from $2.3 billion a year earlier. Blackstone's closely watched fee-related earnings fell 39% to $1.1 billion. Secondary funds fell 1.8% while corporate private equity and private credit funds gained 3.8% and 2.4%, respectively. By contrast, the benchmark S&P 500 index (.SPX) rose 7.08% in the fourth quarter.

☆ Exclusive: Blackstone in talks with Bain to sell $480 million stake in top Indian REIT
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-24 | by ( M. Sriram | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

For Blackstone, it would mean a further selldown of its Embassy stake as it adjusts its portfolio. A spokesperson for Blackstone declined to comment while Bain Capital and Embassy did not respond to requests for comment. It owns and operates more than 43.2 million square feet of office parks and office buildings in cities such as Bengaluru and Mumbai and is also the largest office REIT in Asia by area. Blackstone currently owns 24% of the Embassy REIT, which has a market capitalisation of nearly $4 billion. That will be worth $400 million-$480 million based on Monday's closing price of the Embassy REIT on the stock exchange in Mumbai.

☆ JPMorgan upgrades Blackstone, calls it 'best in class'
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-24 | by ( Michelle Fox | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

JPMorgan Chase upgraded Blackstone to overweight from neutral on Tuesday, calling the money manager "best in class." The call comes on the heels of the recent controversy over Blackstone 's private real estate investment trust. Blackstone shares dropped after news of the redemption limits in December, dropping 8% in five days and ultimately ending 2022 down nearly 43%. "Blackstone remains best-in-class and an intermediate and longer term winner, so it could hold up near-term better than feared," he said. The BREIT structure remains credible and Blackstone will likely launch new retail products to leverage the success of the non-traded structure, he added.

☆ Blackstone's real-estate strategy, laid out in a leaked transcript, sets the stage for tenant battles over evictions and rising rents
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-19 | by ( Rebecca Ungarino | Alex Nicoll | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

The major real-estate investor Blackstone is playing defense as tenants scrutinize its policies. This week, tenants addressed Blackstone and an investor, UC Investments, to raise concerns. A transcript of an executive's remarks, obtained by Insider, sheds light on Blackstone's strategy. It is Blackstone, the New York-based investment giant that has become the world's largest real-estate investor. Vik Sawhney, Blackstone's chief administrative officer and global head of institutional client solutions, introduced Meghji, according to the transcript.

☆ Blackstone is predicting steady growth for its real-estate business, which could be bad news for its tenants
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-19 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Now imagine if your landlord wasn't just some mom-and-pop family that owned your building, but the world's largest private-equity firm. And while it's received a fair share of scrutiny over it, the performance of one of its real-estate funds has reignited criticism. But the Blackstone executives' comments indicated the firm could also be planning to raise rent and evict tenants, which includes those in affordable housing and student housing. Click here to read more about how Blackstone's real-estate strategy is setting the stage for an ugly battle with tenants. Top executives at Davos share their thoughts on how bad things might get in 2023.

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