Blackstone Closes $15.8B Global Real Estate Fund
By Danielle Balbi October 1, 2015 3:31 pm
reprints
Blackstone Group closed its Blackstone (BX) Real Estate Partners VIII fund with a total of $15.8 billion in investments, the company announced in press release on Thursday.
“We are grateful to our limited partners for their continued support, and remain committed to delivering favorable returns,” Jonathan Gray, Blackstone’s global head of real estate, said in prepared remarks. “The size of this fund gives us the ability to commit capital in scale with speed and certainty.”
Of the total fund, Blackstone has already committed 20 percent to investments, including the acquisition the real estate investment trust Strategic Hotels & Resorts as well as the purchase of some assets from General Electric Capital Corporation.
“This fundraise reflects the strong relationship we’ve had with our limited partners for more than two decades,” said Kathleen McCarthy, the real estate group’s global chief operating officer.
A significant amount of the funding came from investors in the U.S. and other countries that had previously provided capital to Blackstone’s real estate funds.
The global private equity firm currently manages “two regional opportunistic real estate funds,” according to the announcement—the $8.2 billion Blackstone Real Estate Partners Europe IV and the $5 billion Blackstone Real Estate Partners Asia.
