Blackstone’s real estate AUM jumps as PE firm cuts dividend

Blackstone (NYSE: BX) slashed its dividends as its quarterly revenue and profits plunged in Q1. In a statement, the firm said that its total revenue in the quarter dropped to $1.38 billion from the previous $5.1 billion.

Blackstone’s net income also plunged hard as it moved from $2.48 billion in Q1’22 to just $210 million. Its earnings per share dropped to 12 cents. In a statement, the company said that its assets under management jumped to more than $993 billion. Fee-earning revenue soared to $732 billion while it perpetual capital rose to $380 billion. Stephen Schwarzman, the CEO said:

“We protected our limited partners’ capital in volatile markets, and they entrusted us with $40 billion of inflows in the quarter. Our successful fundraising initiatives position us with nearly $200 billion of dry powder capital, an industry record, ahead of what we believe will be an attractive environment for deployment.”

Blackstone, as I wrote earlier this week, has been going through major headwinds as the real estate industry struggle. BREIT, its internally managed Real Estate Investment Trust, has lost billions of dollars in the past few months. 

However, its broader real estate business has seen its total AUM jump to $3331 billion. Most of the new funds came from the University of California, which moved $4.5 billion to BREIT. 

Further, its private equity assets jumped by 7% to $287 billion while its credit and insurance assets rose by 9% to $291 billion.

Blackstone stock price crashed by more than 1.1% in the pre-market session. It has risen by more than 11% in the past three months.

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Source: https://invezz.com/news/2023/04/20/blackstones-real-estate-aum-jumps-as-pe-firm-cuts-dividend/