Frank Cohen Steps Down as Blackstone’s BREIT CEO With Wesley LePatner Taking Over

Frank Cohen is stepping down as CEO of Blackstone (BX) Real Estate Income Trust (BREIT), Blackstone’s largest real estate fund, and plans to retire at the end of the year after nearly 30 years at the company, the firm announced Thursday.

The investment giant has appointed current Chief Operating Officer Wesley LePatner to be BREIT’s new leader, effective on Jan. 1, 2025. Cohen, meanwhile, will continue as chairman of the board of directors, the company said.

“I am honored to become CEO of BREIT,” LePatner said in a statement. “It has been an honor to work alongside Frank since I joined Blackstone 10 years ago, and I wish him the best in his next chapter.”

LePatner joined Blackstone in 2014 and proved her leadership by launching three of its Core+ strategies. She will replace Cohen, who joined the firm in 1996 and held numerous leadership positions during his time at Blackstone Real Estate.

Kathleen McCarthy and Nadeem Meghji, global co-heads at Blackstone, said in a statement that Thursday’s announcement marks the “next stage of BREIT’s long-planned succession” at a time when “real estate values have begun to recover.”

“I want to express my deepest gratitude to the entire Blackstone team for creating the culture of excellence that has made this a first-rate place for our employees and investors alike,” Cohen said in a statement. “Wesley is a phenomenal leader, and I look forward to seeing her continue to drive exceptional performance for BREIT’s investors.”

Like many other real estate investment trusts, BREIT has recently come under scrutiny from investors after the commercial real estate market got hit hard from the spiked interest rates in late 2022.

BREIT faced a flurry of redemption requests in 2023 and early 2024, announcing only in March that it was able to fulfill 100 percent of its $961 million of repurchase requests made in February, Commercial Observer previously reported.

The nontraded real estate investment trust’s net worth fell to $61 billion in January 2024 from its more than $70 billion in late 2022, prior to the surge in redemption requests, CO reported.

But the trust has said things are looking up.

“Both inflation and interest rates have come down meaningfully from their recent peaks which, if sustained, should be a long-term positive for real estate values,” BREIT said in a statement in March. “At the same time, new construction in our key sectors has significantly declined, supporting pricing power of our existing assets.”

Isabelle Durso can be reached at idurso@commercialobserver.com.