Fortune partnered with Great Place to Work to analyze survey feedback representing nearly 155,000 U.S. employees.

GPTW_100BestCompaniesToWorkForByRegion_2026-New_York_Large-Blackstone_Inc._US1__69b3fce961790aef776b106c_5

Employees say:"The culture and the people are amazing. The best and smartest in the industry—and nice! Willing to work together and collaborate without the back stabbing common in the financial sector. Our company head always says, 'You can be both smart and nice.' The company has a great maternity leave policy, and I felt so supported throughout my pregnancy, leave and return. I feel like a valued member of the team, even though I'm only a midlevel employee, and good work does not go unrecognized."

Best Large Workplaces in New York

With a combined revenue of $21 trillion and $2.1 trillion in profits, the 2026 Fortune 500 is the definitive list of America's largest companies.

Fortune 500

Almost $20 trillion in revenue—and a record-breaking $1.87 trillion in profits. Introducing the 2025 Fortune 500, the definitive list of the biggest companies in America.

Fortune partnered with Great Place to Work to analyze survey feedback representing nearly 140,000 U.S. employees.

The Fortune 500, in its 70th year in 2024, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

Fortune partnered with Great Place to Work to analyze survey feedback representing nearly 100,000 U.S. employees.

Employees say: 
 
"I have been with Blackstone for over 24 years, which is something I take great pride in. This place is an extraordinary organization and strives to maintain its culture and integrity at all costs. As a veteran who has grown with this firm, I take it upon myself to ensure the core values of the original smaller firm are still instilled today as a global institution with a massive new inflow of new hires. The best asset at Blackstone is its people, and it's recognized at all levels."

See which workplaces made this year's list.

GPTW Financial Services & Insurance Large 2023-Blackstone Inc

Employees say: 
 
"Everyone shares the same passion and drive on delivering excellence. From the IT desk to investment teams, people are truly driven and passionate about their work and doing a good job. This makes it a fun and exciting place to work, where you know you can count on your counterparts and colleagues to step up and help in any given situation."

Best Large Workplaces in Financial Services and Insurance

The Fortune 500, in its 69th year in 2023, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

The companies on this year's list stand out for celebrating innovation, promoting cooperation, and more.

GPTW New York Large 2022-Blackstone Inc

Employees say: 
 
“Very committed to delivering - everyone you work with is smart, driven, dedicated and collaborative. People understand that for the organization to succeed as a whole we need to work together. It is an environment that motivates you to do and be better in a supportive and encouraging way.” 
 
Read the Great Place to Work review .

GPTW Financial Services Industry Large 2022-Blackstone Inc.

Employees say: 
 
“There is a tremendous sense of pride that comes with working at this firm. It has a very strong brand and reputation for excellence and intellectual honesty. I am proud of being a part of the Blackstone community.”

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 68th running of the list.

These companies foster supportive cultures, where employees find opportunities for growth with help from their colleagues.

Best Large Workplaces New York 2021-Blackstone-Group

Employees say: 
 
“Management really makes you feel like you are part of the team. Great relationships with colleagues make the business exceptional and create a successful high-energy environment you want to be a part of.

The best workplaces in financial services and insurance acted as generous corporate citizens amid a year of multiple crises.

Best-Workplaces-Financial-Services-Large-2021-Blackstone-Group

Employees say:  
“The firm culture is truly exceptional. Everyone wants to make sure that they're doing what's best for the organization which includes creating the most inclusive and diverse workplace.”

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 67th running of the list.

Specializing in mergers and leveraged buyout acquisitions, the alternative investment management company converted from a partnership to a corporation in 2019.

We surveyed tens of thousands of employees to create this list of millennials’ favorite workplaces.

Best Large Workplaces Millennials 2021-Blackstone-Group

Employees say: 
 
“Management believes in its staff a great deal and provides them with the tools needed to successfully accomplish a great end result.”

100 Best Large Workplaces for Millennials

The 40 companies highlighted on this year's list support personal growth, outside-the-box thinking, and diversity in the workplace.

best workplaces new york 2020-Blackstone

Employees say: 
 
"Blackstone is a place where you can craft your own path through driving innovation and pushing the status quo. There is always opportunity for advancement."

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 66th running of the list.

F500-2020-420-Blackstone-Group

Robust markets continued to serve this private equity firm well. Investors plowed $134 billion into the company's funds in 2019, bringing its total assets under management to $571 billion.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 65th running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 64th running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 63rd running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 62nd running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 61st running of the list. Wal-Mart claims the top spot again. See who made the list.

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Best Workplaces In New York

Blackstone is the biggest of the publicly traded alternative-asset managers and, in 2023, it surpassed $1 trillion in assets. Blackstone, founded in 1985, was the first major private equity firm to go public in 2007. The company has since expanded beyond PE and focuses on many different strategies including real estate, credit and insurance, hedge funds, and infrastructure. Blackstone also offers private wealth solutions, private market funds that let individuals invest in some of the strategies BX offers.

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Blackstone (BX): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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Good day, and welcome to the Blackstone Second Quarter twenty twenty five Investor Call.

Today's call is being recorded. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. You would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one. If you're using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Weston Tucker, Head of Shareholder Relations. Please go ahead.

Great. Thank you, Katie, and good morning, and welcome to Blackstone's second quarter conference call. Joining today are Steve Schwarzman, Chairman and CEO John Gray, President and Chief Operating Officer and Michael Chae, Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer. Earlier this morning, we issued a press release and slide presentation, which are available on our website. We expect to file our 10 Q report in a few weeks.

I'd like to remind you that today's call may include forward looking statements, which are uncertain and may differ from actual results materially. We do not undertake any duty to update these statements. For a discussion of some of the factors that could affect results, please see the Risk Factors section of our 10 ks. We'll also refer to non GAAP measures, you'll find reconciliations in the press release on the Shareholders page of our website. Also note that nothing on this call constitutes an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to purchase an interest in any Blackstone fund.

This audio cast is copyrighted material of Blackstone and may not be duplicated without consent. On results, we reported GAAP net income for the quarter of $1,600,000,000 Distributable earnings were also $1,600,000,000 or $1.21 per common share. And we declared a dividend of $1.03 per share, which will be paid to holders of record as of August 4. With that, I'll turn the call over to Steve.

Good morning, and thank you for joining our call. Waxman reported outstanding results for the second quarter. Distributable earnings increased 25% year over year to $1,600,000,000 as Weston mentioned. Fee related earnings grew a remarkable 31% year over year and represented one of the best quarters in our history. The strength of these results, notwithstanding a muted backdrop for realizations, reflects the significant expansion of the firm's earnings power that has been underway as we continue to innovate and scale key growth initiatives.

These include our platforms in private wealth, credit and insurance, and infrastructure, along with the launch of multiple new funds in our drawdown area. The firm's expansion is also powering our fundraising, with inflows reaching $52,000,000,000 in the second quarter and $212,000,000,000 for the last twelve months, lifting assets under management 13% year over year to a record $1,200,000,000,000 In addition, there were reports that the US administration may soon issue an executive order that could help open another vast new market for the firm to deliver superior returns and diversifications for investors, the $12,000,000,000,000 US defined contribution channel. The foundation of Blackstone's exceptional long term growth, of course, is investment performance. We continue to deliver for our limited partners, and the second quarter represented the highest amount of overall fund appreciation in nearly four years. The firm achieved these results in a turbulent quarter for markets, which began with the S and P 500 falling 14% amid collapsing investor sentiment due to tariffs, policy uncertainty, and geopolitical instability.

At the time, we advised patience to allow for trade negotiations to take place and to give tariff diplomacy a chance to work its way through the system. Despite the significant external uncertainty, we were encouraged by the fundamental strength of the economy, the accelerating pace of technological innovation as a major growth catalyst, and what we were seeing on the ground in terms of declining inflation. We consistently shared our view that inflation was below the Fed's target when adjusting for lagging shelter costs, based on the proprietary data from our large scale portfolio and our unique position in real estate. As always, the firm's insights informed our views on investing, and we continue to lean into areas where we have high conviction. We invested $33,000,000,000 in the second quarter, and $145,000,000,000 in the last twelve months, one of the most active twelve month periods in our history, setting the foundation for future value creation, and what we believe is a favorable time.

Our deployment has emphasized areas benefiting from long term secular megatrends, such as digital and energy infrastructure, digital commerce, private credit, life sciences, and India. These areas have also been among the largest drivers of appreciation in our funds, In particular, the enormous need for debt and equity capital to build the infrastructure powering the artificial intelligence revolution has created extremely positive dynamics for our business. In real estate specifically, we called the bottom of the cycle eighteen months ago, and since then, we've been actively investing across our real estate equity and debt strategies. We also said it wouldn't be a V shaped recovery, and that is what's happened. Private real estate markets have appreciated gradually over this period.

We are now seeing promising signs with new supply falling sharply, the cost of debt capital coming down, and transaction activity picking up. Overall, despite ongoing uncertainties in the environment, there are multiple supportive tailwinds for our business. In terms of the economy, the backdrop remains favorable with resilient growth. We see inflation remaining muted, with the likelihood for an increase in goods inflation, but decelerating wage, energy, and shelter inflation. These factors should give the Fed room to lower interest rates over time, which is positive for asset values.

In terms of policy, we continue to believe the focus of policy actions ultimately is to support growth. Tax cuts have now been passed into law, and a number of trade agreements have been reached with many more under active negotiation. It remains to be seen how individual negotiations will play out, but the direction of travel is toward more resolutions. As the policy environment settles, we expect transaction activity to benefit, including realizations. Greater clarity will lead to greater confidence for companies, financial sponsors, and market participants.

We're seeing this dynamic start to take effect with The US stock market at record levels. M and A, particularly sponsor M and A accelerating, and the IPO market reopening. Two weeks ago, we successfully executed a sizable IPO in Europe, the first from our private equity or real estate portfolios outside of India in several years. And we are preparing a number of other companies for public offerings over the coming quarters. More conducive capital markets, if sustained, should lead to the acceleration of realizations for Blackstone over time.

In closing, we are tremendously well positioned to navigate today's dynamic backdrop on behalf of our investors. Our portfolio is in excellent shape, concentrated in compelling sectors, and we have 181,000,000,000 of dry powder to take advantage of opportunities. Since our founding four decades ago, Blackstone has continued to innovate and advance the frontier of alternative assets. We are never standing still, and I believe the best is ahead for the firm and for our investors. And with that, I'll turn it over to John.

Thank you, Steve, and good morning, everyone. This was a terrific quarter for Blackstone. The firm's distinctive competitive advantages continue to drive us forward in multiple areas, leading to expanding earnings power as Steve noted. I will highlight three of these areas this morning. First, our robust growth in private credit.

Second, our market leading position in private wealth. And third, our strong momentum in the institutional channel. Overall, a cyclical recovery in transaction activity alongside multiple secular growth engines is a powerful combination for our firm. Starting with private credit. Blackstone has built the largest third party focused credit business in the world with $484,000,000,000 across corporate and real estate credit, up threefold in the past five years.

Over the same period, revenue from this platform has increased more than fourfold. Today we offer clients and borrowers a one stop solution across the risk spectrum. With leading businesses in direct lending, leveraged loans, real estate lending, asset based finance, and numerous forms of investment grade private credit. The scale and breadth of our platform, distinctive origination capabilities, connectivity with borrowers across the market, and our open architecture, multi client model in the insurance channel are significant advantages. In insurance specifically, our decision to be an asset manager for insurance companies rather than becoming one positions us well to address the $40,000,000,000,000 global insurance market.

Today, we manage over $250,000,000,000 on behalf of insurers across private credit, liquid credit, and other strategies, up 20% year over year. Our platform now includes 30 strategic and SMA relationships, and we continue to add more. Two weeks ago, we announced a partnership with leading UK based insurer and the country's largest asset manager, Legal and General, in which we'll provide investment grade private credit solutions to support their rapidly growing pension risk transfer and annuities businesses. We will also work together to develop public private credit products for The UK wealth and retirement markets. We're targeting up to $20,000,000,000 for this partnership in the next five years.

Our expansion in the insurance channel is powering tremendous growth for our private investment grade platform specifically, with AUM up 38% year over year to $115,000,000,000 in the quarter. As always, the key is investment performance. Since the start of last year, we placed or originated $68,000,000,000 of credits for our private investment grade focused clients rated A minus on average, which generated approximately 190 basis points of excess spread over comparably rated liquid credits. Stepping back, Blackstone's innovation in private credit is allowing many borrowers to access this market for the first time while dramatically widening our aperture to invest. For example, we previously discussed a very substantial opportunity emerging with investment grade rated corporates, illustrated by the bespoke solutions we designed for Rogers Communications and EQT Corporation.

We closed the $5,000,000,000 Rogers investment last month alongside Canada's preeminent pension plan as coinvestors. We believe few other investment firms could have executed this transaction given its size, complexity, and the depth of relationships needed. Blackstone has become a trusted mission critical solutions provider to many of the world's leading corporations. And we expect more of these types of partnerships over time. Turning to private wealth, where we continue to advance our market leading position.

In this vast channel, dollars 140,000,000,000,000 including mass affluent and high net worth individuals, a new generation of investors is gaining access to the benefits of alternatives, which is a development led by Blackstone. We started raising private wealth capital twenty three years ago and established a dedicated organization nearly fifteen years ago, growing AUM to almost $280,000,000,000 today, by far the largest private wealth alternative platform in the world. Each of our flagship US perpetual vehicles is the largest or amongst the few largest of its kind. Revenue from these vehicles exceeded $700,000,000 in the second quarter alone compared to approximately $50,000,000 in the same quarter five years ago. As with credit, our scale is a major advantage in the wealth channel alongside our extensive network of relationships with advisors and distributors, our broad menu of high performing products and the power of our brand, which is built on that performance.

In the second quarter, our sales in the wealth channel increased 30% year over year to $10,000,000,000 B Cred led the way, raising $3,700,000,000 underpinned by performance, 10% net returns annually since inception. BXP raised 1,700,000,000.0 in the second quarter, bringing its NAV to $12,500,000,000 in only six quarters with an annualized platform net return of 17% for its largest share class. BREIT had its best quarter of regular way fundraising in two point five years in the second quarter at $1,100,000,000 while repurchases continued on their downward trajectory. BREIT's highly differentiated portfolio positioning has led to 9% net returns annually since inception eight and a half years ago, approximately double the public REIT index on a cumulative basis, including over 3% year to date for its largest share class. This has resulted in BREIT's second consecutive quarter of generating fee related performance revenues for the firm.

Finally, BXInfo saw healthy sales of roughly 600,000,000 in the quarter, despite still only being on a small number of distributors. We launched BMAX, our multi asset credit product in May, which provides individual investors greatly expanded access to the private credit universe, and we'll be ramping up distribution over the coming quarters. Along with other products in development and our previously announced alliance with Wellington and Vanguard, we are quite excited about our continued prospects in the private wealth channel. Moving to our institutional business, where we are seeing strong momentum across key open ended and drawdown strategies. In this channel, again, the advantages of our brand, scale, breadth of products, and of course, our long term investment performance position us extremely well in an environment where limited partners are consolidating their manager relationships favoring the largest and strongest firms.

In infrastructure, our dedicated platform continues on its powerful growth trajectory. AUM rose 32% year over year to $64,000,000,000 supported by remarkable investment performance. 17% net returns annually to the commingle VIP strategy since inception. Our multi asset investing business, DXMA reported its fastest growth in nearly seven years with AUM up 13% year over year to a record $90,000,000,000 again led by performance. Q2 marked the twenty first consecutive quarter of positive composite returns with BXMA's largest strategy.

In our drawdown fund area, we raised significant capital in the second quarter. We closed an additional $3,500,000,000 for our new private equity Asia flagship, bringing the total raise to date to $8,000,000,000 already 25% larger than its predecessor. And we expect to exceed our original $10,000,000,000 target. In our $91,000,000,000 secondaries business, which is doubled in the last five years, we raised additional capital for our fourth infrastructure vehicle, bringing it to over $5,000,000,000 nearly 40% larger than the prior vintage. And we launched fundraising for our new P Secondaries flagship targeting at least the size of the prior $22,000,000,000 fund with the first close expected in the fourth quarter.

Other strategies we are raising include life sciences, opportunistic credit, GP stakes and tactical opportunities. Overall, LPs continue to recognize the substantial benefits of investing in private assets despite the cyclically slow realization backdrop. Looking forward, importantly, we believe the deal making pause is behind us. As Steve noted, the environment we are seeing is emerging from I'm sorry. As noted, the environment we see emerging of lower short term interest rates, less uncertainty, and continued economic growth combined with a pent up desire to transact is the right recipe to reignite M and A and IPO activity.

For Blackstone, we have the largest forward IPO pipeline since 2021. These trends should be very favorable for dispositions exiting this year and into next year. In closing, we are highly optimistic about the road ahead, supported by multiple powerful engines of growth. Blackstone's value proposition for both our limited partners and our shareholders is stronger than ever. With that, I'll turn things over to Michael Che.

Thanks, John, and good morning, everyone. We've previously outlined the building blocks for the favorable step up in the firm's earnings power that has been underway. These included the onset of management fees from multiple drawdown funds exiting fee holidays, the seasoning of perpetual capital strategies and their expanding financial contribution, both in terms of NAV based management fees and recurring fee related performance revenues, robust growth of our credit insurance business, and our healthy margin position. The firm's second quarter results perfectly illustrate these building blocks coming to fruition, while at the same time our significant embedded potential for net realizations continues to build. I'll first review financial results, followed by investment performance and the forward outlook.

Starting with results. Steve and John highlighted the continued scaling of the firm's platforms in key growth channels and the powerful effect that is having on assets under management, inflows and FRE. Total AUM increased 13% year over year to $1,200,000,000,000 underpinned by inflows of $212,000,000,000 over the last twelve months, while fee earning AUM rose 10% year over year to $887,000,000,000 Base management fees increased 14% to a record $1,900,000,000 in Q2, representing the third consecutive quarter of double digit growth. Transaction and advisory fees rose 25% year over year with a record contribution from our capital markets business related to the firm's significant investment activity in the quarter, including in private credit and infrastructure. Fee related performance revenues reached $472,000,000 in Q2, up over 2.5 fold from last year's second quarter, generated by eight different perpetual strategies, including vCred and VXSL in credit, VXPE in private equity, VIP in infrastructure, fee REIT and real estate, along with smaller contributions from other strategies.

These drivers taken together lifted total fee revenues to $2,500,000,000 in the second quarter, up a remarkable 27% year over year and up 14% sequentially from Q1. Coupled with the firm's strong margin position, fee related earnings rose 31% year over year to $1,500,000,000 in the second quarter or $1.19 per share. Distributable earnings increased 25% year over year to $1,600,000,000 in the second quarter or $1.21 per share. For the LTM period, DE rose 26% to 6,400,000,000 or $5 per share despite net realizations remaining at unit levels, leading to 26% growth in the dividend to $4.26 per share. This equates to an attractive 2.4% yield on the current share price, double the yield of the S and P 500.

And the forward outlook is favorable, as I'll discuss further in a moment. Moving to investment performance. Our funds generated strong overall appreciation in the second quarter, the highest amount nearly four years, as Steve noted, despite the volatile environment. The corporate private equity funds appreciated 5.1% in the quarter and 17% in the last twelve months. Strength was broad based.

Despite the macro uncertainties at the outset of the quarter, our operating companies generated high single digit year over year revenue growth, along with resilient margins. In addition to corporate private equity, our other PE strategies delivered strong returns in the quarter. The tactical opportunities funds appreciated 4.114% over the LTM period. The SP secondaries funds appreciated 6.6% in the second quarter in the context of a well positioned portfolio that benefited from sizable recent investments executed at favorable prices. The SP funds appreciated 11% for the LTM period.

Our dedicated infrastructure platform appreciated 2.9% in the second quarter and 19% for the last twelve months, notwithstanding a decline in the public portfolio in Q2 of end market journeys, with appreciation underpinned by continued significant momentum of data centers, along with other digital infrastructure, power, and transportation related holdings. In real estate, values were largely stable overall in the second quarter, with appreciation in the opportunistic funds in BREIT led by strength in data centers. Within the Core Plus platform, the BPP funds declined modestly, driven by our life sciences office portfolio, which has been impacted by new supply coming online and increased tenant caution. Overall, our real estate platform remains well positioned with data centers, logistics, and rental housing comprising approximately 75 of the global equity portfolio, nearly 90% of BREIT. In credit, our non investment grade private credit strategies reported a gross return of 3% in the second quarter and over 13% for the LTM period.

Default rate across our 2,000 plus non investment grade credits remains in the area of 50 basis points over the last twelve months, with no new defaults in private credit in the second quarter. The XMA reported a 2.8% gross return for the absolute return composite in Q2 and 12% for the last twelve months. Notably, PXMA has delivered positive composite returns in each of the past twenty seven months, a remarkable achievement in liquid markets in any case and particularly so given historic volatility that is characterized this period. One final note on returns. Our dedicated life sciences business reported outstanding performance again in the second quarter, appreciating 6.727% over the LTM period.

The quarter benefited from positive developments for a number of investments in the portfolio. Our Life Sciences platform provides investors with exposure to innovation and exciting growth area in a way that we believe is largely uncorrelated to broader public markets. Our prior $5,000,000,000 flagship has achieved annualized returns of 20% since inception, net of fees. Overall, the strength in the firm's investment performance continues to power our growth. Turning to the outlook, where as you've heard this morning, there is a very positive multiyear picture for the firm. First, in terms of FRE, setup for this high quality earnings stream is favorable, with a few drivers of note that will affect the second half of this year. We expect base management fees to continue on a strong positive trajectory with the rate of year over year growth in the second half resembling that of the first half. On transaction fees, following a very strong first half, we would anticipate a lower baseline in the second half with potential upside from rising transaction and market activity. Looking forward to 2026 and beyond, there's robust structural momentum in FRE driven by the firm's multiple pensions growth. In terms of net realizations, in the second half of this year, we expect to close the sale of the firm's 6% stake in Resolution Life in connection with the sale of the company to Nippon Life.

With respect to fund dispositions, we believe we're entering a more constructive environment, as Steve and John discussed, and that we're well positioned to see an acceleration in net realizations exiting this year and moving into 2026. Performance revenue eligible AUM in the ground is a record $6.00 $4,000,000,000 at quarter end, up 14% year over year. Meanwhile, net accrued performance revenue on the balance sheet, firm's store of value, grew sequentially to $6,600,000,000 or $5.3 per share. These are positive indicators of future realization potential. In closing, the firm continues on its path of extraordinary long term growth powered by our brand, investment performance, and culture of innovation against the backdrop of significant secular tailwinds.

As always, we remain totally focused on delivering for our investors. With that, we thank you for joining the call and would like to open it up now for questions.

Thank you. We'll go first to Alex Blostein with Goldman Sachs.

Thank you. Good morning. Appreciate the question. I wanted to start with a question around credit. Obviously, incredibly powerful driver for you guys and the industry broadly.

It's been fueling growth for a couple of years now. At the same time, we're clearly seeing compression in credit spreads. And I'm curious how that's playing into your client conversations where the premium to liquid market is still there, but perhaps might start narrowing if there's more capital coming in there. So any conversations around demand for private credit, whether it's from retail channels or institutional channels and any implications on fee rates longer term as we think about this product continuing to grow? Thanks.

Great question, Alex. I would say on the credit front, the demand remains extraordinarily robust. And we are seeing it broadly non investment grade, investment grade credit, which as you know is early days. We are seeing it in The United States and we are seeing it around the world. And I would say clients are recognizing that base rates have come down, short rates are likely to come down more, spreads have tightened gradually.

But what I think the clients are enthused about as we are as well, is that enduring premium between the liquid markets and private credit. And that's what they're focused on. And so long as that continues to exist, I think this makes this a very attractive space. In the second quarter for our insurance clients, we delivered that A rated premium of 185 basis points, 190 over the last eighteen months. So that's really what the clients are focused on.

And to me, that's the key to this. That's why I think it will continue to grow. Also, think there are some areas here where private credit has a unique capability. Some of these corporate solutions we've done with Rogers and EQT Corporation, which really work much better in a private format. And then tied to this enormous investment spend around data centers and energy infrastructure.

Again, that's harder to bring to the public market and it lends itself to private credit. So I would say today, we continue to see very strong demand The business, you can see it in the numbers in terms of the rate of growth, 20% insurance, 16% overall between credit insurance, corporate and real estate debt. It feels to us like this will continue. And the key is, yes, absolute returns may come down a bit, but the relative premium for private credit and what private credit can do and how it can solve solutions for borrowers, that continues. So I would say our optimism looking forward in the space and doing it the way we do it, which is purely as an investment manager with no capital risk and that open architecture, which allows us to serve a broader universe.

We like all of that and we have a lot of confidence looking forward.

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Glenn Schorr with Evercore ISI.

Hi, thanks. That's a good lead into this question because I feel like everything is going pretty darn good at Blackstone with the exception of the real estate in general in this environment. So the question is, maybe you could give us the mark to market of the expected recovery in terms of what's going to drive it, meaning pricing, financing, deal flow, client flows to the asset class. Are we all in on waiting on lower rates? What is the incremental over the next, say, year or two that's gonna drive demand for your real estate products? Thanks, John.

Thanks, Glenn. I would say the good news now is it is all about a question of when, not if. Because the building blocks for this recovery are clearly coming into place. The first and most important one is new supply coming down. And that takes time to work through the system because you start a project two, three years ago, then it comes online, it is excess capacity.

Now because of the two thirds decline in building in The U. S. From the peaks in terms of logistics and apartment construction, you are going to begin as we get towards the end of this year and into next year to have a much more favorable supply demand dynamic. The other area is cost of capital. Some of its base rates, which you highlighted and obviously the fed cutting rates will be helpful.

But some of its spreads and those have come back now back to pre liberation day levels. They are down significantly from the wides in 2023. And you're beginning to see those early green shoots in terms of a faster recovery transaction activity for smaller assets is definitely gotten better. You see that for both apartments and logistics in The US. There's a little more liquidity in Europe now as well.

And that to me is an important sign. And then on the customer side, which you referenced, there's definitely now more openness to allocating to the space. We're having more conversations there. We raised some capital for a dedicated core plus real estate industrial strategy of a couple billion dollars. We had, as we've seen, we announced the best quarter of fundraising regular way in BREIT that we'd had in two and a half, three years.

So it's the early signs of this recovery. If rates come down faster, obviously, the recovery is quicker. If they don't, then new supply will continue to be muted. And then the recovery will take a little more time. But ultimately, we know the path of travel.

It's not as if we're going to disintermediate apartments or last mile warehouses. So I'd say our confidence on the ultimate outcome high, and we're getting closer and closer to that tipping point where real estate will start to move. We haven't quite gotten to that escape velocity yet, but it's feeling better and better given some of these key things, the cost of capital and the decline in new supply are very supportive as you start to look forward.

Thank you. We'll go next to Craig Siegenthaler with Bank of America.

Hey, good morning, Steve, John. Hope everyone's doing well. We had a question on strategic partners. So in your secondary fund, returns accelerate in 2Q, and there's a one or two quarter delay there too, so maybe they should get even better with endowments and a few Asian institutions selling their PE stakes and discounts wider. So I want to see if you could update us on the investment return and fundraising outlook for Second House.

Hey, Craig, it's Michael. On the return portion, as I mentioned in my remarks, it was a combination of factors that really drove pretty robust returns. It does reflect the purchase gains from a very significant large new purchase, one of our biggest secondary deals in history, and that had beneficial effect. And then in terms of the underlying funds, we had good appreciation, which contributed to that return as well. And then there was a minor portion of actually currency benefits as well.

So it's a combination of those factors. But I think what really kind of outsized returns in the quarter is the benefit of that very large exciting deal that we did close to the quarter.

And I would say on the broader segment, it's really in a sweet spot today. Obviously, are investors who want liquidity, deal volume investment volume, I think for us is up something like, is it 40%? I want to say roughly in the first half of the year over last year. And the pipeline looks pretty good on the deployment front. The returns have been very strong over time in this area.

And that's making it attractive to investors. We announced the progress we've made on the secondaries infrastructure fund. We've just started on the flagship secondaries private equity fund. We expect we'll get a really good response given the performance over time. So this is an area of the firm.

It's doubled over the last, I guess, five years. I expect that it will continue to grow quite a bit. And it's another reason why Blackstone has this exceptional platform. Other firms have strengthened one area or another. There are just so many areas.

And so when we travel around, I personally travel around a ton, talk with CIOs around the world, the ability to talk about a range of solutions, a range of investing areas. They may be today more cautious on real estate or regular way buyouts, but they're excited about Asia private equity. They love what we're doing in secondaries. That's really the power of Blackstone. It's true in the institutional channel.

It's true in the retail channel. And secondaries is a powerful example.

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Michael Cyprys with Morgan Stanley.

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. I just wanted to ask about four zero one and the retirement opportunity set. I was hoping you could maybe elaborate a bit on how you see the path unfolding for ALTs accessing the 04/2001 retirement title. It seems that target date is perhaps maybe the most likely vehicle.

Just curious to get your views on that. How meaningful of an allocation could this be within the target date vehicle, not just for ALTS, but also considering fixed income replacement and other types of strategies that you have or may have in the future? And just more broadly, how you see this playing out and talk about some of the steps that you guys are taking. Thank you.

Well, it starts with we'll wait and see if there is an executive order and then ultimately, rulemaking. So I think we all need to be patient here. But as we've talked about in the past, we think this is compelling for individual investors today in the defined contributions world, the access to alternatives, both the returns and diversification benefits. So we would expect this is going to happen at some point over time. But again, we have to wait and see.

In terms of where it'll happen, the size, I think we've got to wait. I do think it's logical that it happens more in the target date funds. It's obviously more appropriate for somebody earlier in their lifespan as opposed to somebody just on the cusp of retirement. And so I think the target date funds is where we'll see this initially take hold. Obviously, it's a very large market.

And for us specifically, the fact that we have created scale perpetual products that have track records that can absorb large amounts of capital, that is a real competitive advantage. I do not believe drawdown funds will be the structure given the complexity of those four defined contributions. And so I think it's going to be about large scale perpetuals. It's going to be about firms with brand names and the right legal approaches and track record that capital can get allocated to. So obviously, the dollars in the space are large.

Our positioning in the space, I think, will be fairly unique. And the range of offerings we have across asset classes, again, pretty unique to be a partner with distributors in this space. But we've got to wait and see, is there an executive order, how it rolls out? It will take time. But I do think there is a potentially significant opportunity here.

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Bill Katz with TD Cowen.

Great, thank you very much for taking the question. So just coming back to some of your forward looking guidance, can you unpack a little bit how you sort of see the interplay for the FRE margin, very strong quarter this quarter? And then relatedly, as we think through the realization up cycle, how do we think about the payout rate on that? That's been pretty steady in the mid-40s. Should we assume that that's still the same kind of payout going forward?

Just trying to think through the overall earnings gearing here. Thank you.

Hey, Bill, it's Michael. Thank you for the question. Look, on the margin outlook and dynamics, we're obviously pleased with the performance year to date. It's the result of healthy double digit management fee growth and strong underlying margin position. We also benefited from higher fee related performance revenues and transaction fees, which carry attractive incremental margins.

I think in the second half, a few variables to consider. Is a level of sensitivity to fee related performance revenues, as we've commented in the past. There's, as we've also said, seasonally higher OpEx in the second half of the year. But I think in that area, we previously pointed to low double digit growth in 2025 overall, and we'd reiterate that view. But look overall for the fiscal year, we're tracking favorably against the initial view we gave in January of sort of stability as a guidepost.

But as I mentioned, there's always a few variables that can ultimately impact us. But long term, we feel obviously very good about our positioning and the ability to generate operating leverage. On realizations and the sort of performance fee margins and comp ratios, Yeah, I think broadly speaking, you should expect stability that varies with the mix of funds and strategies that are the source of funds revenues in quarter. A We have had the ability to manage the mix of compensation between fee compensation and performance revenues. And we'll still be able to do that, which I think will be beneficial to FRE margins directionally and might trade off performance revenue margins somewhat as a result, but I think that's more directional and at the margin.

But we feel very good about our sort of our leverage to drive margins across the P and L.

Thank you. We'll go next to Dan Fannon with Jefferies.

Thanks. Good morning. John, I wanted to follow-up on your comments around the deal making pauses behind us. Just want to get a little bit more color on your confidence around this. We've obviously been here before and waiting for activity to pick up, but you obviously sounded much more confident here this morning. So just would love a little more color there.

Well, it's a fair question, because I think we expressed some confidence similarly at the outset of the year. And then we had the tariff issues and that slowed things down. You can feel things sort of the tumblers falling into place. It's the combination of equity markets recovering to record levels. It's debt spreads now back to the pre liberation day types.

It's general business confidence, particularly for businesses away from manufacturing and retailing, who are in the teeth of some of the issues around goods and the cost of those goods. And so there's overall a more constructive environment. There's also a more favorable regulatory environment than there's been in a few years, of course, for M and A. And when you just look at the levels of M and A and IPO volume over the last three plus years, it's running about two thirds below historic levels as a percentage of market cap of the stock market. So there's just a lot of pent up demand in the system.

And then when we look at our proprietary data, we've got the busiest pipeline we've had since 2021 of potential IPOs. We talked about getting one done in Europe here a couple of weeks ago. And then deal screenings on the BXCI, the credit side, up 50% new deals sort of coming in the door that we're looking at versus the end of the year. So lots of things are coming together. Yes, you need a level of terra firma.

But if this holds, I do expect we'll see a step function increase in transaction activity that of course, on the realization side, as Michael noted, takes a little bit of time. It's like moving the plane out to the runway before it ultimately takes off. But those signs of getting companies public, public companies becoming more active debt markets, there's been a ton of refinancing activity as cost of capital comes down in the last few weeks. All the things are coming into place. And that's what's giving us this confidence you hear.

We'll take our next question from Brian McKenna with Citizens.

Okay, great. Good morning, everyone. So real estate performance eligible AUM totals around $200,000,000,000 today. Net accrued performance fees stand at less than $1,000,000,000 today. So I'm curious how much of the $200,000,000,000 is currently generating performance revenue?

And then is there a way to think about how much of this AUM, call it, is 10% away from the hurdle? I'm just trying to get a sense of the trajectory of accrued performance fees in real estate from here as performance and underlying trends begin to normalize.

Thanks for the question. Yes. As you mentioned, the balance of performance eligible dollars in real estate is about it's over $200,000,000,000 I would just frame it that about 60% of that is above their respective hurdles in terms of the components in breadth and opportunistic. Importantly, as it relates to carries, know, the vast majority, you know, 80% plus of the AUM is above hurdle. And as I said, that really represents the bulk of our accrued carry in real estate.

100% of BREIT is also above that hurdle. So that's sort of the structure of it. And so I think we're as John just referenced, with time, we expect the realization cycle to accelerate probably more in private equity before real estate than ultimately in real estate. And in those breadth funds as it relates to net realizations, that's the positioning relative to hurdles, which is a favor.

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Steven Chubak with Wolfe Research.

Hi, Steven. Good morning. Katie, it sounds like Steven, we lost him. Please do. Steven, you

No. Weston, I'm here. If you can hear me. Sorry. I was muted.

My apologies. Good morning, everyone. Regarding the B MAX launch, I was hoping you could speak to your confidence level as to whether this could scale at a similar pace to some of your other retail vehicles, just trying to gauge the early reception. Any additional color you can offer on some of the retail products in the pipeline that were referenced in some of the earlier prepared remarks?

Blackstone (BX) Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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