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.

Company Info

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Date info provided (companies may opt to keep some data confidential)

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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.

Q2 2026

Q1 2026

Q4 2025

Q3 2025

Q2 2025

Q1 2025

Q4 2024

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

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Blackstone

blackstone

Good day, and welcome to the Blackstone 4th Quarter and Full Year 2024 Investor Call.

Today's call is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Weston Tucker, Head of Shareholder Relations. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks, Katie, and good morning, and welcome to Blackstone's Q4 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 ks report later next month.

I'd like to remind you that today's call may include forward looking statements, which are uncertain and may differ from 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 and 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 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. Quickly on results, we reported GAAP net income for the quarter of $1,300,000,000 Distributable earnings were $2,200,000,000 or $1.69 per common share and we declared a dividend of $1.44 per share, which will be paid to holders of record as of February 10. With that, I'll turn the call over to Steve.

Thank you, Weston, and good morning and thank you for joining our call. Blackstone just reported one of the best quarters in our history. Distributable earnings increased 56% year over year to $2,200,000,000 as Weston mentioned, underpinned by record cap already. Our limited partners entrusted us with $57,000,000,000 of inflows just in the 4th quarter and $171,000,000,000 for the year, reflecting strong momentum in both the institutional, insurance and private wealth channels. On particular note, we raised $28,000,000,000 in private wealth in 2024, including $23,000,000,000 in the perpetual strategies, nearly double, to repeat that, nearly double what we raised from individuals in these strategies in the prior year.

All signs point to further acceleration in 2025. After quarter end in January, we raised an additional $3,700,000,000 for our private wealth perpetuals, including the launch of our new infrastructure vehicle, representing a powerful affirmation of our unique position in this channel. We believe our $260,000,000,000 private wealth business is multiples of the size of our next largest competitor. Largest single contributor to the firm's financial results in the Q4 was our dedicated infrastructure strategy VIP, which generated $1,200,000,000 of fee revenues. VIP has delivered remarkable investment performance since inception only 6 years ago, including 17% net returns annually for the commingled strategy.

This performance has fueled exceptional growth with AUM today of $55,000,000,000 up 34% just in the past year alone. BIP anchors a broader infrastructure platform as a firm that exceeds $120,000,000,000 across equity, credit and sector. In a relatively short period of time, we've established one of the world's largest infrastructure business. Our success in this area is a powerful illustration of how we build an enduring leading business at Blackstar. It reflects the same blueprint for how we've been able to grow from 400,000 dollars in startup capital in 1985 more than $1,100,000,000,000 of AUM today, the largest alternative asset manager in the world.

And why I believe we will continue to achieve strong growth in the future. It starts with innovation as a core competency of the firm as we're always working to identify the next paradigm shift in the market. We evaluate whether we can create something truly differentiated for our limited partners, but the opportunity can be scaled significantly if we have the right team to lead it, drawing upon the firm's deep well of talent. Importantly, any new area also add to the firm's intellectual capital and create synergies with our other businesses to make the rest of the firm better. We have carefully considered infrastructure as a standalone business for a number of years.

We've been investing successfully in energy infrastructure projects for over a decade, both our private equity and credit funds, which along with our extraordinary real estate franchise made infrastructure natural extension as a new business line. In 2017, we saw a historic investment opportunity emerging in the U. S. And around the world, made the decision to launch a dedicated strategy. We identified a talented individual in our private equity energy area, our partner, Sean Klumsak, who lead the new business.

We began raising capital in 2018 supported by an anchor commitment from an important limited partner. Today, with $55,000,000,000 an outstanding investment performance, VIP has exceeded our initial and predictably very high expectations. The team has done an exceptional job portfolio construction focused on compelling thematic areas, including digital infrastructure, energy and power and critical transportation infrastructure. And we see enormous runway ahead. Massive funding needs for projects globally mean there are more opportunities and available capital.

We envision a growth path for our infrastructure business that parallels that of our real estate business, including geographic expansion, new client channels, moving across the capital structure and risk return spectrum. We started raising a European infrastructure perpetual vehicle last fall. And earlier this month, as I mentioned, launched a vehicle designed to give individual investors access to the full breadth of our infrastructure platform. Over time, we also see opportunities in Asia and the potential for sector specific strategies. The growth of our infrastructure business was greatly helped by the other businesses at Blackstone and the firm's resources around the globe.

These advantages include sourcing opportunities from and investing alongside our other funds. For example, VIP joined our real estate team in 2021 to privatize the QTS data center business, which has become the largest and fastest growing data center platform in the world. And now our leadership position in data centers is creating additional synergies across the firm, enabling us to address many new opportunities. And as VIP has continued to scale, it has in turn enhanced the firm's intellectual capital, relationships and deal flow, supporting our growth in other areas, including our $90,000,000,000 infrastructure and asset based credit platform, our infrastructure secondaries business and our dedicated energy and energy transition focused funds. What I'm pointing what I'm outlining this morning is just one compelling proof point of the power of the Blackstone platform.

Design the firm from the beginning to work this way, with each business making the other stronger. This network effect sets Blackstone apart in the asset management area and underpins the strength of our brand. PACS is an accelerant for the firm's overall growth. Our clients have a positive experience in one area. They're much more likely to invest in additional Blackstone products and support our expansion.

Building things organic from the ground up is challenging, takes time, involves upfront costs. However, we think our approach ultimately creates a stronger more integrated firm as well as significant economic benefits as compared to a strategy for cultural acquisitions. And it preserves and perpetuates our unique culture, which is foundational to the firm's success. As we head into the New Year, we're moving into an environment where we see consequential tailwinds for our overall business. Market participants have been focused recently on volatility in the U.

S. Treasury yields, reflecting persistent inflation concerns in the context of resilient U. S. Economic growth as well as policy uncertainty. With respect to inflation, what we see based on our expansive portfolio and our proprietary data that the U.

S. Is continuing on a path of disinflation, albeit at a more moderate pace than before. In policy, where there are different factors to consider, I believe the direction of travel fundamentally is toward policies that are pro growth and pro deregulation, which ultimately should be quite positive for our business. Closing, the power of Blackstone's platform will continue to drive us forward. Our positioning has never been stronger nor our prospects brighter.

I couldn't be prouder of our people and their dedication to serving our investors. With that, I'll turn the ball over to John.

I will catch you. Thank you, Steve, and good morning, everyone. This was an outstanding quarter for Blackstone. Steve highlighted the power of our platform and I'll take you through 3 areas where that power was on full display. 1st, our large scale deployment secondly, our continued momentum in credit and insurance and third, the acceleration in our fundraising, including both private wealth and the institutional channel.

Starting with deployment. Over the past 12 months, we've been talking about a strengthening transaction environment and our desire to invest significant capital in anticipation of improving markets. We're pleased to say that we deployed $134,000,000,000 in 2024, up 81% year over year, planting the seeds of future value at what we believe is a favorable time. The combination of a healthy U. S.

Economy, historically tight financing spreads, greater debt availability, the prospects of a more business friendly regulatory climate and importantly accelerating technological innovations have given us confidence to deploy capital at scale. We invested or committed $62,000,000,000 in Q4, our most active pace in 2.5 years. New commitments in the quarter included fast growing franchise business and very tasty Jersey Mike's, the privatization of a grocery anchored retail REIT, our 3rd take private in real estate in 2024 and a luxury mixed use complex in Tokyo representing the largest ever real estate transaction in the country by a non Japanese investor. In credit, we reported record deployment for both the quarter and full year including a $3,500,000,000 financing for EQT Corp, one of the largest natural gas producers in the United States. This venture is an excellent illustration of the scale of what we're doing today in the investment grade private credit space and our position as a trusted solutions provider to many of the world's leading corporations.

We leveraged the full breadth of our platform to design a custom solution across the capital structure for the borrower secured by the long term contractual cash flows of their critical pipeline infrastructure. For our clients, we provided access to a high quality directly originated investment and we executed the transaction as always without taking on balance sheet risk. We see a significant opportunity for more corporate partnerships over time given the scale of our platform and our reputation. Stepping back, our credit and insurance business continues to see huge momentum following a remarkable 2024. We built a private credit juggernaut and the largest third party business of its kind in the world with over $450,000,000,000 of total assets across corporate and real estate credit.

Inflows through the combined platform exceeded $100,000,000,000 in 2024 comprising 60% of the firm's total inflows. Our non investment grade private credit and real estate credit drawdown strategies appreciated 16% 18% respectively for the year. These are extraordinary results for performing credit underpinning robust investor interest in these areas. We're also seeing strong traction for our investment grade private credit offerings as I noted and now manage over $100,000,000,000 in that area up nearly 40% year over year, virtually all on behalf of insurance clients. But we are now seeing receptivity from pensions and other LPs as well.

In the insurance channel specifically, our business has reached nearly $230,000,000,000 up 19% year over year invested across IG Private Credit, Liquid Credit and other strategies. Today, we have 23 SMA clients in addition to our 4 large strategic relationships. We placed or originated $46,000,000,000 of A- rated credits on average for our private IG focused clients in 2024, up 38% year over year, which generated nearly 200 basis points of excess spread over comparably rated liquid credits. We've achieved these results while remaining true to our capital light, brand heavy, open architecture model designed to serve a multitude of insurance clients without taking on any liabilities. Resolution Life, one of our 4 strategic relationships is a perfect validation of our model.

Last month, Nippon Life, the largest Japanese life insurer and an existing Resolution shareholder announced it would acquire the remainder of the company it didn't already own at a $10,600,000,000 valuation. Blackstone had taken a small 6% stake in Resolution in 2023 alongside other limited partners in connection with becoming the company's asset manager for private and structured credit. Nippon's investment will monetize our stake, deliver an attractive gain to our limited partners and the firm all while positioning Resolution to accelerate growth under an extremely well capitalized and capable parent. Importantly, we will remain Resolution's investment manager going forward and we are excited to partner with Nippon on this next stage of the company's development. Turning to Private Wealth, where our momentum accelerated significantly in 2024, 2025 is also off to a terrific start.

We are uniquely positioned in the wealth channel given the breadth of our product lineup, our performance and the power of our brand. Sales in the channel exceeded $28,000,000,000 in 2024 as Steve noted. Decred led the way raising over $12,000,000,000 for the year driving 36% year over year growth in NAV. Our private equity strategy BXP has already grown to over $8,000,000,000 in its 1st year including January sales. And for B REIT, flows trended favorably with net repurchase request in December down 97% from the peak.

We raised an additional $3,700,000,000 for the private wealth perpetuals in January as Steve highlighted, marking their best month of fundraising from individuals in over 2.5 years. This included more than $1,000,000,000 each from BCRED, BXP and our new infrastructure strategy. The launch of the infrastructure strategy marked the largest ever first close for a vehicle of its kind and was 5 to 6 times the size of competitors' product launches. To give you the sense of the strength of our brand in this channel, over 90% of advisors who allocated to this strategy had previously allocated to another Blackstone perpetual vehicle and over 50% allocated to all 4 of our perpetual flagships. B rate's exceptional performance 9.5 percent net annual return since inception for its largest share class through a real estate superstorm has helped us here a lot.

We're now in the process of launching our multi asset credit product as discussed previously targeting the first half of this year. We see enormous opportunity ahead in the $85,000,000,000,000 private wealth market. Our drawdown fund area is also benefiting from robust client engagement today with the tenor of discussions feeling far better than it has in several years. We held major closings in Q4 for our real estate credit flagship bringing it to $7,100,000,000 so far. European Real Estate, which has raised $9,500,000,000 to date and our private equity energy transition strategy, which has raised $5,200,000,000 all of which will soon complete fundraising.

We raised additional capital for our opportunistic credit strategy bringing it to over $4,000,000,000 and held initial closings of $1,600,000,000 for our new life sciences flagship targeting at least the size of the prior $5,000,000,000 fund. We will also soon begin raising the new vintages of a number of other highly successful strategies including Private Equity Asia for which we expect very significant closings in the coming months along with private equity secondaries, GP stakes and tactical opportunities. Overall, the fundraising outlook is quite positive for the firm. Investor affinity for Blackstone is as high today as ever and it all ties back to investment performance. As you'll hear from Michael in a moment, we again reported strong returns across nearly every area of the firm in the Q4.

Our LPs have benefited significantly from the way we've positioned the firm and their capital, including building the largest third party credit complex, the largest data center business, one of the largest energy infrastructure platforms in leading life science business and what we believe is the largest alternatives platform in India. These areas have continued to outperform and we believe will drive outstanding future results for our clients as well. In real estate, however, our equity oriented funds were down in the 4th quarter as the portfolio absorbed the 80 basis point increase in the 10 year treasury yield and our non U. S. Holdings were also impacted by the stronger U.

S. Dollar. We wouldn't expect to see a move of this magnitude in treasury yields going forward given the underlying inflation data. And while disappointing in the near term, our portfolio is in excellent shape with cash flow growing solidly overall across virtually all our real estate strategies. 1 year ago, we said that real estate values were bottoming, but that the recovery would take time and was unlikely to be V shape.

That's exactly what happened. We remain firm believers that a sustained commercial real estate recovery is underway. Debt markets have vastly improved as borrowing spreads tightened by approximately 50% from the 2023 wide and CMBS issuance was up nearly threefold in 2024. At the same time, new construction starts are down dramatically from virtually all types of real estate, including by 2 thirds from 22 levels in U. S.

Logistics and apartments, our largest sectors. Meanwhile, demand is resilient with the potential for acceleration in the context of a stronger U. S. Economy. Given our conviction, we deployed $25,000,000,000 in real estate in 2024, up nearly 70% year over year and we expect to continue to deploy at scale.

Real estate is a cyclical asset class that has been through a cyclical downturn and we believe Blackstone is the best positioned firm in the world to benefit from the recovery. In closing, the firm is in terrific shape by any measure. We expect to achieve great things on behalf of all of our investors. And with that, I will turn things over to Michael Jay.

Thanks, John, and good morning, everyone. Our Q4 results represented an exceptional finish to an outstanding year, and we entered 2025 in a position of significant strength. I'll first review financial results and we'll then discuss investment performance and the outlook. Starting with results. We reported the best quarter of fee related earnings in the firm's history and one of the 2 best quarters of distributable earnings.

We saw the full benefit of multiple drawdown funds that were activated throughout the year. Key perpetual strategies continue to scale significantly, including the very notable contribution from the BIP infrastructure business. And we believe net realizations have begun to move off cyclical lows. First, with respect to fee related earnings. In the Q4, FRE grew a remarkable 76% year over year to a record $1,800,000,000 or $1.50 per share.

Management fees rose 12 percent to a record $1,900,000,000 including the 60th straight quarter of year over year base management fee growth at the firm. We activated the investment periods for multiple major drawdown funds in 20 24, which contributed full fees in Q4. Alongside that, key perpetual strategies BIP, BCRED and BXPE continue to grow in scale and contribution to the firm's financials with their combined NAV up nearly 50% year over year. Fee related performance revenues increased more than 8 fold year over year in Q4 to $1,400,000,000 driven by VIP's major scheduled crystallization event with respect to 3 years of substantial accrued gains, BXP's 1st significant crystallization event with respect to full year 2024 gains and the steadily growing contribution from BCRED and our direct lending platform overall with a 47% year over year increase in these revenues for the Credit and Insurance segment. In terms of distributable earnings, DE grew 56% year over year to $2,200,000,000 in the 4th quarter or $1.69 per common share.

In addition to the strong growth in FRE, net realizations increased 42% year over year to $601,000,000 the highest level in 10 quarters. We executed a number of realizations across both the public and private portfolios in the quarter, concentrated in corporate private equity. These included the sale of public energy positions along with the IPO and sale of a portion of our stock in an India based company at a multiple of invested capital of over 5 times with the stock trading up further since then. In addition, our multi asset investing segment, BXMA, generated outstanding investment performance in 2024, including the best year for the absolute return composite in 15 years. The XMA crystallizes incentive fees for most of its open ended strategies annually in Q4 and the segment's performance revenues increased 144% year over year to $338,000,000 Now turning to the full year.

The firm delivered strong results amid a complex external environment in 2024 with robust growth across all key financial and operating metrics. Distribulal earnings grew 18% to $6,000,000,000 Fee related earnings increased 21% to a full year record of $5,300,000,000 Net realizations rose 12% to $1,400,000,000 supported by the strong performance in VXMA and yet another example of the benefits of our diverse business mix. The firm's expansive breadth of growth engines lifted total AUM up 8% to more than $1,100,000,000,000 another record with $171,000,000,000 of inflows for the year. Inflows deployment and overall fund appreciation all accelerated meaningfully in 2024 expanding the foundation of future value. We achieved these results against a backdrop where the market for large scale realizations was very challenged for much of the year and the significant underlying earnings power of our real estate business has yet to reemerge, reflecting the breadth and power of our platform that Steve and John described.

Moving to investment performance. The firm delivered strong returns in almost every area in the 4th quarter. Corporate Private Equity and Funds appreciated 4.9% 17% for the full year. Our operating companies overall reported stable mid single digit year over year revenue growth in the quarter along with continued notable margin strength. Our infrastructure business reported 4.8% appreciation in the 4th quarter and 21% for the year.

In credit, our non investment grade private credit strategies generated a gross return of 3.1% in the 4th quarter and 16% for 2024. We continue to see resilient fundamentals across the credit portfolio and the LTM default rate across our 2,000 plus non investment grade credits remained under 50 basis points. The XMA reported a 3.7% gross return for the absolute return composite, the 19th consecutive quarter of positive performance and 13% for the year. BXMA has generated compelling all weather returns in liquid markets, helping to insulate our LPs from the volatility of the past several years. Indeed, since the start of 2021, DXMA's cumulative absolute return composite, net of fees, is 34% or nearly double the traditional sixty-forty portfolio.

In real estate, the opportunistic funds declined 5.1% in the 4th quarter and 4% for the full year, while the core plus funds declined 0.8% in the quarter and were stable for the year. As John discussed, the Q4 was impacted by the sharp increase in treasury yields and the stronger U. S. Dollar. Outside of our major reported business lines, the growth and performance of other key strategies further highlight the firm's ability to innovate and build businesses.

Our dedicated life sciences platform delivered standout performance in 2024 with the funds appreciating 11.3% in the 4th quarter and 33% for the full year, driven by the achievement of positive milestones for multiple treatments under development. Our real estate credit high yield drawdown funds appreciated 4.4% in Q4 and 18% for the year underpinned by resilient credit performance in its real estate loan portfolio. And our GP Stakes business appreciated 4.1% in the 4th quarter and 28% for the year, reflecting its focus on top performing managers in private markets. The resiliency and strength of the firm's investment performance continues to power our growth. Turning to the outlook.

The firm is advancing with strong momentum across multiple drivers. 1st, in our drawdown fund area, in 2025, we will see the full year benefit from funds that were activated throughout 2024. 2nd, our platform of perpetual strategies has continued to expand overall, now comprising 46% of the firm's fee earning AUM, setting a higher baseline for management fees as we enter 2025. In addition, BXP is now eligible to generate fee related performance revenues on a quarterly basis and our infrastructure strategy for individual investors in its 1st year will be eligible in Q4 of 2025 with respect to full year 2025 gains. And while BIP's significant Q4 crystallization event will not recur in 2025, we do expect smaller crystallizations periodically starting in the Q2 of this year.

3rd, there is significant underlying momentum in our credit insurance business as you've heard this morning. The segments FRE and DE grew 26% 24% respectively in 2024. And with robust inflows and record deployment, the business is exceptionally well positioned to deliver strong financial performance again in 2025. Finally, with respect to realizations, we see a much more constructive environment for realizations in 2025. In the near term, we would expect disposition activity to be concentrated in our private equity strategies as real estate exit markets strengthen over time and for overall activity levels to be meaningfully higher in the second half of the year.

Meanwhile, net accrued performance revenue on the firm's balance sheet stood at $6,300,000,000 at year end or $5.14 per share and performance revenue eligible AUM in the ground reached a record $561,000,000,000 These are strong indicators of our future realization potential. In closing, we are highly confident in the multiyear picture of growth at Blackstone. The power of our platform has driven extraordinary results for our investors and we believe it will continue to do so in the future. With that, we thank you for joining the call. I would like to open it up now for questions.

Thank We'll take our first question from Dan Fannon with Jefferies.

Thanks. Good morning. John, I was hoping you could expand on some of the fundamentals you were seeing in the real estate market that gives you the confidence on the recovery. And while the recovery has been slow as you highlighted in 2024, how do you see that ramping in terms of 2025?

Good question. I would say when we think about the conditions for real estate recovery, you look for a number of things. First, you obviously want demand, which is tied to economic growth. And we've got a pretty healthy U. S.

Economy, which leads to demand for logistics and apartments and hotels. So I think if the economy accelerates further, that's certainly a positive. Then of course supply, which I think is the key element here. We've seen a decline from 3 plus percent new supply starts back in 2022 in logistics and rental housing, our biggest areas. That's declined now to 1%, so a 2 thirds decline, which is very helpful.

So we think cash flows as we move over time will be pretty good. They actually have been strong throughout this challenging period the last few years, which really hit real estate of course has been the cost of capital. And there what we see is spreads have tightened quite a bit, sort of overall borrowing costs have gone from say 9% to 6%. That's obviously helpful. And the availability of capital has improved.

So CMBS last year was up threefold, and that's obviously very important for transaction activity. In the near term, that 80 basis points move as you saw in our numbers obviously had a negative impact, But that's now been absorbed by the market. And so I think the combination of favorable cash flows and probably a more stable rate environment going forward gets us on this path. Ultimately hard assets have to revert to replacement costs. With a growing economy, you need more real estate.

And so rents and ultimately values have to grow. So the path of travel is clear. The slope may be a little different, but the reason we're leaning in is because we see that we're firmly on this recovery path for real estate.

our next question from Craig Siegenthaler with Bank of America.

Good morning, Steve, John. Hope you're both doing well. We wanted to circle back on Michael's monetization commentary and the expected ramp in transaction activity. Blackstone is still a net buyer of assets, but given the macro setup with the high stock market valuations and anticipated rise in IPOs, when do you expect to inflect and be a net seller of assets in corporate private equity? And then on Michael's prepared comments again, how far behind is the real estate cycle relative to private equity?

So Craig, I think a few things. The environment is clearly here getting better. Again, the strength of the economy, the health of the equity market, the S and P being up 60%, the IPO market, the pipeline for IPOs now is double where it was a year ago. Those are very constructive facts. We think large profitable companies can go public.

The debt markets improving are certainly helpful both investment grade and high yield spreads are basically at record tight. Base rates are still a bit elevated, but the debt market is very constructive. We've got a regulatory climate for M and A that is far better for us. Strategics can now start to buy again and some of those dialogues are picking up. And then you do have this sort of desire for people to get transactions after 3 years being on the sidelines.

So we sort of see the ingredients for a very positive M and A cycle coming together. We did see a little bit of a slowdown in the 4th quarter given the election and some volatility around rates, but I think it's going to build during the year. To your question and Michael's comments, private equity is definitely going to be stronger. I think there we have a number of things where we'll see realizations earlier on. Real estate, we need this recovery to take a little more time.

So we see that as more back half of the year, certainly not the beginning of the year, just given the nature of that market sort of healing over time. So overall, I think a better environment certainly in 2025 and 2024, but more back end weighted and first half of the year definitely more private equity focused.

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

Great. Thanks so much. Good morning. Just a question on AI data centers. Just curious how you're thinking about the evolving investment opportunity around AI, particularly in the infrastructure layer with data centers and power.

We've seen a lot of capital flow into the space. And you guys at Blackstone have been quite active in the space in particular. But just given some of the recent developments, for example, like with DeepSeq over the weekend that suggests that AI models maybe could be a bit less capital and energy intensive. Just curious how attractive do you see the infrastructure layer here moving forward? How much more capital investment do you guys see needed across the industry?

And how are you thinking about potential shifts for investment opportunities across into the application layer?

So, Mike, we've obviously been spending a lot of time the last week, looking at the impact of DeepSeq. I'd start with our data center business, which is the largest in the world. We have $80,000,000,000 of leased data centers. The good news in that business is these are long term leased data centers with some of the biggest companies in the world. And we do not build data centers speculatively anywhere in the world.

So we have a very prudent approach when we think about data centers. The real question and the heart of your question is what is demand going forward? And on that front, we would echo what you're hearing I think from a lot of commentators, which is the cost of compute is coming down pretty dramatically. But at the same time, that's going to lead to more usage, to more adoption. And so what does that mean for the physical infrastructure side?

I'd go to the calls last night for both Meta and Microsoft. They talked about the importance of physical infrastructure. Mark Zuckerberg said that he thought it was a strategic advantage for them, but they did acknowledge that some of this may need to be more fungible. Maybe there's a little less training that's done as a result of less intensity, but at the same time there's more inference. Maybe there's more cloud, maybe there's more to do with enterprise.

So we have a sense in talking to our clients also that there's a belief as usage goes up significantly, there's still a vital need for data centers. The form of that use may change. And related to that power usage, we think will continue because our lives are migrating online and all these questions, there'll be even more questions coming even if the amount of power used on an individual question goes down. So we still think there's a vital need for physical infrastructure, data centers and power. Some of it may change.

And the good news for our investors is we're not doing things speculatively. It's based on the demand signals from our tenants. That's when we go out and spend the big dollars to build these things. So we still think it's a very important segment and there's a way to run, but obviously we're watching what's happening very closely.

We'll take our next question from Kyle Voigt with KBW.

Hi. Good morning, everyone. Maybe a question on BXPE. The last few quarters have been in a healthy $1,000,000,000 to $2,000,000,000 zone in terms of quarterly fundraising. I guess first, can you remind us where you're at in terms of distribution of the product, whether that's number of platforms or international breadth and what the runway looks like to expand that?

$1,000,000,000 to $2,000,000,000 quarterly inflow range, is that the pace that you are really comfortable growing this type of product? Or now with having some investment track record and entering the 2nd year of the product, is there comfort in ramping the flows above that $1,000,000,000 to $2,000,000,000 quarterly pace if there is demand?

Well, we've been steadily building out our partnerships with distributors on BXP. This is always the way you start with a smaller number. As you work your way through the 1st 2 or 3 years, you steadily expand within the United States and geographically. We're sort of on that path. I don't know if we quote exactly how many distributors we use, but the number continues to grow.

We've had some good success in places like Canada recently. The key for these products is investment performance and BXP did a terrific job the 1st year and the 1st year is the hardest year because you're just getting the product started, you don't have existing assets, you're sort of going from a standing start. We delivered very strong performance and it really speaks to I think the unique scale we have. We have obviously large scale corporate private equity. We do it in the U.

S, Europe and Asia. We've got core private equity, tactical opportunities. We've got growth. We've got life sciences. We've got secondaries.

The breadth of that platform has allowed us to deploy the capital real time. In terms of where we go from here, we had a terrific month in terms of fundraising for BXP in January. But I think it will be driven by performance. We have the capabilities to deploy more at scale. I feel great confidence at that.

I just think it's we deliver performance, we deliver for the clients. They're going to get more and more comfortable. We're going to open with more distributors and the product will continue to grow. We've done this in the past with both B REIT and B Cred. We think this is a similar model.

But again, we've got to deliver for the customers. We've got to deploy the capital. I've got a lot of confidence in those areas. And given our strength in the channel and our brand strength, it's really powerful. I mean, the fact that 50% of our financial advisors who invested in BX Infra are invested in all four of our products just speaks to that powerful network effect.

And financial advisors and their underlying clients know and trust the Blackstone name and that is so important. And so we're dedicated to delivering for them. If we do that, this can grow a lot just like our other products in the space.

We'll go next to Bill Katz with TD Cowen.

Okay. Thank you very much for the commentary. You didn't talk at all about retirement. I know it's an area that the whole industry is sort of incrementally focused on, but you did sort of mention perhaps a more favorable regulatory backdrop. How do you sort of see the evolution of the commentary coming out of your conversations with the regulators as that sort of takes shape into 2025 under the Trump administration?

What should we be looking for that opportunity set to potentially open up from a realistic perspective?

Well, I guess where we start is the way the defined contributions and retirement business has evolved. And I do think it's created a bit of a sort of have, have not environment. So if you think about it, wealthy individuals are able to access our products through financial advisors and get the benefit of strong long term returns and compounding. If you were an employee at a major corporate sort of pre-two thousand and five, you probably have the benefit of a pension fund where people are working hard every day to deliver these returns, allocating to alternatives. If you work at a state pension fund today, you also are getting that same benefit.

But for the vast majority of private sector workers in the United States, they are given a 401 plan where because of the litigation environment, they basically focus on the lowest fees and it's not about long term performance. And it would seem highly logical to us that at some point in, for instance, target date funds with the right gatekeepers and controls, picking the right managers that you would put private assets into this marketplace. So individual investors, all individual investors could get the benefit for retirement. When you think about who should be in the position to do that, if the regulation changes, Blackstone given our brand, our performance, the breadth of what we've done and the range of perpetual products we've created, we seem to be uniquely positioned. So I think this will happen.

It's a question of when and when it does, as I said, I think we'll be in a good spot. It certainly seems logical given the way the markets developed over time and we really want to democratize access to these products into higher returns, so people can generate more for their retirements.

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

Hi, this is Kaimon Chung in for Glenn Schorr. Some of the insurance companies seem to be looking to do more on their own in private markets. I'm just curious what you're seeing and your expectations of further growth with your insurance partnerships. And also heard your comments about Nippon Life, just want to get more thoughts on the growth opportunities for insurance and credit in Asia and what else you're doing in that region?

Well, I think the biggest change that we've seen in the insurance industry over the last few years is that moving beyond just commercial mortgages into broader private investment grade credit has gone from something people saw as novelty to a necessity. And so I think now if you're competing in the annuity space, certainly in the life space, even the P and C companies now are looking at this that if you can get comparably rated A- credits and get 200 basis points higher spread, that makes you more competitive with your sales organization. And what we're seeing sort of across the landscape is an embracing of this model where they move a greater percentage of their assets into private investment grade credit. And for us, the reason we're up nearly 20%, we're at $230,000,000,000 in insurance is because of this dynamic. And I would say the number of conversations, the scale of the conversations, it seems to be accelerating.

And the other comment I would make is the fact that we have an open architecture model. We are not an insurance company ourselves with 100 of billions of liabilities. We are not out there selling these products. We're just a third party manager The way the liquid managers used to manage liquid credit and still do on behalf of insurers, they see us as an attractive place to allocate capital. We're trusted and the scale is really important because no insurer wants too much concentration given their important risk aversion, they need diversification.

So what we're finding is there's desire to talk to us on a larger strategic basis. We've got 4 of those clients. We now have 23 SMA clients, which is up 3 from where we were at the end of last quarter. This feels like it's going to continue to grow. It's obviously started in the U.

S. You referenced Nippon Life, which is a terrific company. We've seen Asian insurers who are also open to this idea. So I think there's opportunity there. There's select opportunity in Europe as well.

The key again is do we deliver performance? Can we deliver them higher returns at the same or lower risk? We believe we can. And as we continue to scale up with our origination capabilities, being able to speak for larger transactions like we did this $3,500,000,000 EQT transaction in the midstream space, that's going to put us in a better and better spot. So I think you will see this business continue to grow in a material way.

And as an aside, as I mentioned in the prepared remarks, we're also seeing interest in investment grade private credit now from some of our pension and sovereign wealth funds. It's very early days, but it feels like that's going to grow in momentum. But overall, insurance feels like an area where we're going to see a lot of growth in the years ahead, particularly at Blackstone.

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Alex Blostein with Goldman Sachs.

Hey, good morning everybody. Thank you for the question. So staying on credit for a second, really strong fundraising across the platform and it was really well balanced, which is obviously great to see as well. Can you give us a sense of the amount of capital that's sitting on the platform now that's not earning fees yet that will turn on upon deployment? And I guess in that context, can you talk a little bit about your expectations for credit deployment over the next kind of 12 months or so?

Blackstone (BX) Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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