Blackstone Q2 2026 Earnings Report

Blackstone EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $1.52
• Consensus EPS: $1.34
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.18
• One Year Ago EPS: $0.98

Blackstone Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $5.04 billion
• Expected Revenue: $3.42 billion
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$1.62 billion
• YoY Revenue Growth: +35.90%

Blackstone Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q2 2026
• Date: 7/23/2026
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, July 23, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 9:00AM ET

Blackstone (NYSE:BX) is a global alternative asset management firm that provides investment management and advisory services to institutions, corporations, and individual investors. The company invests across multiple asset classes, including private equity, real estate, credit, infrastructure, insurance solutions, and hedge fund solutions.

Its investment activities include acquiring and managing businesses, commercial and residential properties, infrastructure assets, and credit investments. Blackstone also offers investment products and strategies designed to provide clients with access to private markets and other alternative investments.

Blackstone was founded in 1985 by Stephen A. Schwarzman and Peter G. Peterson and is headquartered in New York City. The firm serves clients and manages investments across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and other international markets. Schwarzman serves as chairman and chief executive officer, while Jonathan D. Gray serves as president and chief operating officer.

Blackstone Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Blackstone reported distributed earnings of $2.0 billion in Q2, up 26% year over year, with fee-related earnings up 22% and total inflows near $70 billion. AUM hit a record $1.35 trillion, underscoring broad fundraising momentum.
• Positive Sentiment: The firm said AI infrastructure is now a major growth driver, especially in data centers, power, and frontier AI companies. Management highlighted new initiatives including the BXDC data center REIT, a Google TPU cloud venture, and large-scale AI-related capital solutions.
• Positive Sentiment: Blackstone described strong performance across private wealth and insurance, with wealth AUM up 16% to $324 billion and insurance AUM up 15% to $290 billion. It also pointed to new partnerships such as Nippon Life and the launch of new products with Wellington and Vanguard.
• Neutral Sentiment: Management reiterated that base management fees should grow at a double-digit rate in 2027, supported by deployment in drawdown funds, the scaling of perpetual vehicles, and strong credit dry powder. They also said transaction fees and fee-related performance revenues are becoming a more important part of earnings.
• Positive Sentiment: Realizations improved, with net realizations up 27% year over year and the firm’s accrued performance revenue reaching a four-year high of $7.5 billion. Blackstone expects realizations to be stronger in 4Q and into 2027, helped by a stronger IPO market and improving exit conditions.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good day, welcome to the Blackstone Second Quarter 2026 Investor Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. If you require operator assistance, please press star zero. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one. If you are 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 conference over to Weston Tucker, Head of Shareholder Relations. Please go ahead.

[Weston Tucker, Head of Shareholder Relations at Blackstone]

Thank you, Katie, good morning, welcome to Blackstone's Second Quarter Conference Call. Joining today are Steve Schwarzman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Jon 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 everyone 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-K. We'll also refer to non-GAAP measures, you'll find reconciliations in the press release on the Shareholders page of our website.

[Weston Tucker, Head of Shareholder Relations at Blackstone]

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 audiocast is copyrighted material of Blackstone and may not be duplicated without consent. On results, we reported GAAP net income for the quarter of $2.4 billion. Distributable earnings were $2 billion, or $1.52 per common share, we declared a dividend of $1.29 per share, which will be paid to holders of record as of August 3rd. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Steve.

[Steve Schwarzman, Chairman and CEO at Blackstone]

Good morning, thank you for joining our call. Blackstone reported outstanding second quarter results with distributable earnings up 26% year-over-year to $2 billion, as Weston mentioned. Approximately the same rate of earnings growth we delivered in the first quarter. Fee-Related Earnings grew 22% year-over-year in the second quarter, while net realizations rose 27%, despite the geopolitical volatility. Total inflows reached nearly $70 billion in the quarter, over $260 billion for the last 12 months, lifting assets under management 11% year-over-year to a record $1.35 trillion. The most significant driver of these strong results continues to be the large-scale investments we made in artificial intelligence-related areas, including data centers, energy and power, and the frontier AI companies themselves.

[Steve Schwarzman, Chairman and CEO at Blackstone]

These investments are leading to standout results in numerous strategies across the firm and are supporting our momentum in fundraising, deployment, and as we start to monetize some of the substantial gains we've been building in these areas in performance revenues. Over the past several years, we've been regularly sharing our views on the transformative potential of AI and how we've been positioning the firm to benefit from the paradigm shift that is underway. Blackstone has become one of the largest private capital providers in the AI ecosystem, a position that gives our investors unique access to the remarkable opportunities emerging in this area and allows them to share directly in the extraordinary potential upside. Many of these opportunities, of course, can't be replicated in the public markets. We built the largest data center development business in the world, demand for compute is accelerating.

[Steve Schwarzman, Chairman and CEO at Blackstone]

We became one of the most active private investors in power and utilities, energy demand is significantly rising. We invested directly in some of the fastest-growing private companies in the world, including Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX. We're now creating new companies and platforms that we believe will play a critical role in the advancement of AI, including four in the second quarter alone. First, we teamed with Google to build a new AI cloud provider powered by their TPU chips, investing up to $5 billion initially. We think this business has the potential to scale quite significantly over time as the first neocloud for TPUs. Second, we partnered with Anthropic to form a company focused on driving enterprise adoption of their AI-powered solutions, helping firms to realize the vast potential of this technology.

[Steve Schwarzman, Chairman and CEO at Blackstone]

Third, we joined Broadcom and another manager to create a financing platform in support of Broadcom's deployment of large-scale AI compute for their end customers. The platform provided $35 billion initially to deliver 1 GW compute, representing the largest private credit investment in history, with much more to come. Fourth, alongside these partnerships with leading AI companies, we launched a Blackstone REIT known as BXDC, something public market investors can access directly to acquire stabilized, newly constructed data centers. The $2 billion offering represented the largest blind pool REIT IPO in history, a testament to our leadership position in this sector. The market for long-term ownership of stabilized data centers is nascent today, but we think it could grow to $1 trillion over time and beyond, representing massive potential for BXDC.

[Steve Schwarzman, Chairman and CEO at Blackstone]

In addition to these new ventures, we're seeing extraordinary momentum in our data center platform, which has grown to $185 billion of total value, including facilities under construction, up from $130 billion at the start of just this year. We expect to lease over 3x more capacity this year than any other year in our history. If we execute on our pipeline, our data center platform could double over the next few years. Growth of this type, underpinned by long-duration leases with some of the highest quality and most creditworthy customers in the world, is a compelling illustration of what can be created in private markets. While it's still early in the life cycle of our data center investments, as one indication of their significant embedded value, we recently sold our stake in a collection of fully leased assets that are still under construction at a multibillion-dollar gain.

[Steve Schwarzman, Chairman and CEO at Blackstone]

Meanwhile, in energy, we continue to actively invest to help meet rising global demand, including in utilities, utility services, renewables, pipelines, LNG, and electrical equipment across both equity and debt. We've generated highly differentiated returns for LPs in these areas as well, as highlighted by the performance of our energy-focused strategies. Last week in credit, we announced a $5.3 billion investment for leading energy infrastructure company, Williams, to support multiple development projects to power data centers. This investment provides yet another example of Fortune 500 companies looking to private markets for customized, long-duration capital solutions. I'm sharing these examples to highlight the remarkable scale of capital needed for the AI buildup and the unprecedented opportunities it's creating for Blackstone and our investors. At the same time, there are investment risks and uncertainties that accompany the rapid growth of AI, along with important societal considerations.

[Steve Schwarzman, Chairman and CEO at Blackstone]

In terms of risks, we're mindful of the potential for excessive exuberance in this area, and we've carefully chosen our spots, leveraging our scale and knowledge advantage to build conviction. We focused on identifying compelling risk-adjusted returns with outsize upside potential, in many cases, meaningful downside protection. On the societal implications of AI, I've been extensively engaged on this topic since I made a major donation in 2018 to MIT, establishing the Schwarzman College of Computing, and this includes a focus on AI safety. I've been spending a lot of time with leaders in the industry and various policymakers thinking about how to address this critical issue while also preserving the advancement of America's AI leadership. In addition, the firm is working closely with our portfolio companies, including our data center businesses, to address the workforce, environmental, and community implications of development.

[Steve Schwarzman, Chairman and CEO at Blackstone]

Through the creation of union jobs, workforce training, water-free cooling systems, expanded power generation, and significant local economic investment, our goal is for these projects to contribute to the success of the communities we serve. Overall, I believe the potential change from AI has precedent in the Industrial Revolution and the commercialization of electricity. Each time in history there's been this type of dramatic change, economies have adjusted and the standard of living for virtually everyone in society is improved over time. We believe the future impact of AI will echo these previous periods, but with more rapid implementation and complexity. Major change of this type also creates anxiety due to the uncertainties of how the technology will evolve and its ultimate impact. We will need to monitor these developments as a society and course-correct when necessary.

[Steve Schwarzman, Chairman and CEO at Blackstone]

In closing, we are in the early days of what I believe will be the most consequential transformation in industry and markets in a generation. Private capital will play a vital role in these advancements, and Blackstone is the leading firm. I have great optimism for what's in store for our investors. For shareholders, our stock is on sale today, and we believe it represents one of the most inexpensive ways to participate in this extraordinary mega-trend. With that, I'll turn it over to Jon.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

Thank you, Steve, and good morning, everyone. The seed planting we have been doing across the firm around AI and AI infrastructure is generating outstanding returns. A relentless focus on investment performance remains our true north. Our clients are responding with robust inflows across all of our major fundraising channels, institutions, insurance companies, and individual investors, the three I's. At the same time, the IPO market is strengthening, setting the foundation for greater realizations and performance revenues over time. I will speak about each of these dynamics in detail. Starting with our institutional business, which remains the core engine of our firm. Investor affinity for Blackstone is as strong as ever, and we are seeing our momentum accelerate across numerous areas. In infrastructure, we launched our dedicated platform eight years ago, and today it is a rocket ship, with AUM growing a remarkable 40% year-over-year to $90 billion.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

AI is powering our investments in digital and energy infrastructure in particular, leading to 18% net annual return since inception for the commingled BIP strategy. Meanwhile, our Multi-Asset Investing business, BXMA, is experiencing a renaissance. We originally entered the hedge fund of funds business in 1990 and effectively relaunched this platform in 2021 when we brought on Joe Dowling to lead it. BXMA has now delivered 25 consecutive quarters of positive returns for its largest strategy, with Q2 representing the best returns in six years. AUM reached a record $109 billion, up 21% year-over-year, representing its fastest organic growth in nearly 15 years, when the segment was less than half of its current size. Post-quarter end on July 1st, BXMA reported an additional $4.8 billion of monthly inflows, its best single month of fundraising in history. Turning to our institutional drawdown area, which is accelerating.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

We are raising a new cycle of funds across a number of highly differentiated strategies. Three of these funds hit their hard cap so far in 2026, with excess demand in opportunistic private credit, life sciences, and Asia private equity, and we expect our new private equity energy transition flagship to hit its hard cap soon as well. Taken together, these four strategies represent nearly $40 billion. Our Asia PE flagship held its final close in the second quarter, raising $13.1 billion, more than double the previous vintage, on the back of a 27% net annual return in the prior fund since inception. Our decision to focus on India, where we believe we have the largest alternatives business, and Japan, has been a key driver of this performance.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

Our fifth key energy transition flagship closed on nearly $6 billion in the second quarter, already equal in size to the prior vintage, on its way to an expected $8.7 billion. In secondaries, we have raised over $14 billion to date for our new buyout flagship with a target of at least $22 billion. In credit, we held closings for new drawdown vehicles in direct lending and asset-based finance. Overall, our institutional business has extraordinary forward momentum. Stepping back for a moment on credit, where our combined platform has grown to nearly $550 billion across corporate and real estate credit, up 13% year-over-year. Inflows were $33 billion in the second quarter, or nearly 50% of the firm's total. We are seeing continued strong engagement with institutions across our non-investment grade strategies despite the market noise earlier in the year.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

At the same time, we are benefiting significantly from the massive secular shift underway toward investment-grade private credit. A new direct-to-customer model has taken hold, which brings clients right up to borrowers, leading to a better experience for both. In the insurance channel specifically, this model is resonating, as is our open architecture approach. Our insurance AUM reached $290 billion in the second quarter, up 15% year-over-year, representing the largest third-party-focused platform in our sector. We announced a new partnership with Japan's largest life insurer, Nippon Life, in which we will deploy approximately $10 billion in private credit over the next several years and also invest in their domestic real estate portfolio.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

This builds on our existing relationship with Nippon Life through their investments in Corebridge Financial and Resolution Life, both of which are major partners of ours. In total, we now have 40 clients in our dedicated insurance solutions area, a number which has nearly doubled in the past two years, and we continue to add more on a global basis. We are building something highly differentiated in this channel and have established a massive scale advantage with the combined strength of 40 of the leading insurers in the world, all without taking on insurance liabilities. Moving to private wealth, performance and brand are the ultimate determinants of success in the wealth channel, and Blackstone is a leader in both. Despite the geopolitical turmoil, turbulence, and muted flows in credit, our AUM in the channel grew 16% year-over-year in the second quarter to a record $324 billion.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

Total sales were $8.6 billion in the quarter, with a slower pace in April and May, when sentiment related to the Iran conflict was most negative, but a strong recovery in June. This momentum has continued so far in Q3. BXPE led the way again in the second quarter with $2.4 billion raised, bringing its NAV to over $25 billion in only 10 quarters. June represented the best month of sales since launch at $1.2 billion. BXPE has achieved a remarkable 20% net annualized return since inception for its largest share class, including approximately 8% net in the second quarter, powered by its outstanding portfolio positioning. Our infrastructure vehicle and private wealth, BXINFRA, raised approximately $900 million in the second quarter, bringing its NAV to $6 billion in just six quarters, underpinned by a 16% annualized net return in its largest share class.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

BREIT raised $1.2 billion in the second quarter, while repurchases continued to decline sharply, falling 42% year-over-year and down 33% sequentially from Q1, resulting in the best regular way net flows in nearly four years. The vehicle has generated a 9.4% net return for its largest share class since inception nine and a half years ago, approximately 40% above the public REIT index, including 10.3% net for the last 12 months. BREIT's investment in data centers, which now comprise 27% of the portfolio, has been particularly helpful. NAV increased 7% year-over-year to $57 billion. BREIT is clearly back in growth mode. Finally, BCRED's gross sales were $1 billion in the second quarter. Repurchase requests remain elevated and exceeded the 5% limit, with approximately 50% fulfilled, resulting in net outflows of $1.2 billion.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

The semi-liquid structure of BCRED and our private wealth perpetuals is designed to provide greater liquidity than traditional drawdown funds while protecting performance. We have been here before with BREIT, and while it is early in the third quarter, redemption requests are down materially. Looking forward, our performance supports innovation. Yesterday, the first two funds in our alliance with Wellington and Vanguard officially launched WVB All Markets and WVB Blackstone All Privates, with inflows expected to start later this quarter. These funds provide individuals with simplified access to three world-class asset management firms, including the full breadth of the Blackstone platform. Together, the alliance is actively exploring additional strategies, including for the retirement market. Later this summer, the firm expects to accept our first subscriptions to BXHF, our new perpetual multi-strategy hedge fund product targeting more liquid exposures.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

Adoption of private markets in the wealth channel remains on a structurally positive trajectory, and Blackstone continues to lead the way. Finally, turning to the IPO market, which has strengthened considerably. At the start of the year, we predicted that 2026 would be the year of the IPO, and that is what's playing out. In the first six months of the year, U.S. IPO activity increased sixfold compared to the same time last year, while global issuance rose more than three and a half fold. Against this backdrop, Blackstone has executed three IPOs since May, a mobile advertising business in the U.S., an office REIT in India, and the firm's stabilized data center REIT, BXDC. This week, we launched another significant IPO in the U.S. In total, we have eight IPOs on file globally from a diverse range of sectors and geographies.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

While geopolitical developments will continue to impact markets, we are optimistic on the direction of travel with our IPO activity providing the foundation for greater realizations over time. In closing, our highly diversified, capital-light, performance-driven model continues to deliver. I'm extremely confident about the future. With that, I will turn things over to Michael Chae.

[Michael Chae, Vice Chairman and CFO at Blackstone]

Thanks, Jon, and good morning, everyone. The firm's continued evolution and the expanding scope of our activity have fundamentally transformed our earnings power, both in terms of the magnitude as well as the breadth of sources of earnings. In the second quarter, we again delivered over 20% year-over-year growth across total revenues, fee revenues, fee-related earnings, net realizations, and distributed earnings, following a similar trajectory for these metrics in Q1. Meanwhile, our funds reported strong overall investment performance against a backdrop of significant geopolitical uncertainty, highlighted by notable strength in our AI-related portfolio, as you've heard this morning. Starting with results, distributed earnings increased 26% year-over-year to $2 billion in the second quarter, or $1.52 per share, underpinned by one of the three best quarters of fee-related earnings in our history, along with robust growth in net realizations.

[Michael Chae, Vice Chairman and CFO at Blackstone]

First, with respect to FRE, which increased 22% year-over-year to $1.8 billion, or $1.43 per share. Fee revenues also rose 22% to $3 billion, with double-digit year-over-year growth in all four of our segments. 32% growth in private equity, 21% in real estate, 18% in BXMA, and 11% in credit. In terms of the underlying drivers of fee revenue growth, transaction and advisory fees for the firm nearly doubled in the second quarter to a record $321 million, and were up 52% sequentially from Q1. The expansion of our platform and overall levels of financing and investment activity has led to a material step-up in these revenues, representing an important and underappreciated engine of fee revenue generation. Further, fee-related performance revenues increased 68% year-over-year to $793 million in the second quarter, powered by the scaling and strong overall investment performance of our platform of perpetual strategies.

[Michael Chae, Vice Chairman and CFO at Blackstone]

These revenues increased nearly threefold for both BXPE and BREIT, alongside contributions from BCRED, BIP, BXINFRA, and other vehicles. Base management fees for the firm grew at a mid-single digit rate year-over-year, in line with the trajectory we previously outlined. We saw strong double-digit growth in base fees in private equity and BXMA, some deceleration in year-over-year growth in credit related to the BDC area, and a decline in real estate due to harvesting activity in the BREIT Opportunistic Funds and headwinds in our institutional core-plus business, as I mentioned last quarter. We continue to expect similar year-over-year base management fee growth for the firm in the third quarter as in Q2, with a return to double-digit growth in base management fees in 2027. Turning to net realizations, we reported $414 million in the second quarter, up 27% year-over-year.

[Michael Chae, Vice Chairman and CFO at Blackstone]

Gross performance revenues grew 32% year-over-year to $731 million, underpinned by a 20% increase in private equity, while real estate performance revenues rose nearly fivefold to the highest level in four years. We noted last quarter that the geopolitical volatility had pushed out exit pipelines and slowed realization activity in the near term. Even so, we were able to execute a number of dispositions across the firm, including the data center sale that Steve discussed, along with multiple realizations in the energy portfolio. These included a manufacturer of engineered structures for electric transmission, a natural gas pipeline, a Europe-based environmental services firm, and the public stock of an energy solutions company. Overall, the firm's embedded realization potential is significant.

[Michael Chae, Vice Chairman and CFO at Blackstone]

The net accrued performance revenue on our balance sheet, our store of value, now stands at $7.5 billion, or $6 per share, the highest level in four years, up 13% year-over-year and up 7% sequentially from Q1. While we do expect a sequential deceleration in net realizations in the third quarter, we anticipate a robust fourth quarter and 2027. That brings me to investment performance, which, as Steve mentioned, was highlighted by outstanding returns in numerous strategies, driven in significant part by our AI-related portfolio. This was illustrated in our returns in infrastructure, our dedicated energy strategies, BXPE, BREIT, and the most recent vintages of our corporate private equity and real estate opportunistic funds, which have favorable exposure to this area. BXMA's strong overall returns also benefited from its positioning in the AI area.

[Michael Chae, Vice Chairman and CFO at Blackstone]

For the firm overall, AI-related holdings comprised nine of the 10 largest markups in the second quarter. Our dedicated infrastructure platform appreciated 7.2% in the quarter and an exceptional 29% for the last 12 months. For U.S. and Europe-focused data center business, QTS was once again the largest single driver of appreciation in infrastructure, real estate, and for the firm overall in Q2, driven by continued extraordinary leasing momentum. We also saw significant gains across other data center investments in the U.S. and Asia. The corporate private equity funds appreciated 3.7% in the second quarter and 14% for the last 12 months. Our holdings in power and electrification, both private and public, along with strong performance in Asia, were the largest drivers of Q2 returns.

[Michael Chae, Vice Chairman and CFO at Blackstone]

The most recent vintages of our corporate private equity strategies were the best performing, powered by these areas, including appreciation of 6.1% in the quarter for our latest global flagship, 8.8% for Asia, and 23.6% for our most recent fully invested energy fund. Overall, our private equity operating companies continue to report healthy underlying fundamentals, including revenue growth of 11% year-over-year. BXMA reported a 5.8% gross return for the absolute return composite in the second quarter and over 15% for the LTM period. BXMA has delivered positive composite returns in each of the last 25 quarters, as Jon noted, and in 38 of the past 39 months, a remarkable achievement notwithstanding the significant volatility in public markets over this period.

[Michael Chae, Vice Chairman and CFO at Blackstone]

Strong investment performance across the BXMA platform in Q2 led to the segment's highest dollar fund appreciation in history and is supporting robust inflows and continued double-digit year-over-year growth in AUM. In credit, our non-investment grade private credit strategies reported a gross return of 1% in the second quarter and 7% for the last 12 months, reflecting stable underlying credit performance across the vast majority of our holdings, with strong current income providing ballast to returns. Here too, our energy funds outperformed, with our most recent BGREEN III reporting a 4.5% gross return in the quarter. Finally, in real estate, overall values appreciated modestly in the second quarter, led by strength in data centers, partly offset by declines in life sciences office and certain other areas.

[Michael Chae, Vice Chairman and CFO at Blackstone]

While the recovery in commercial real estate has been impacted by the increase in base rates, our platform remains well-positioned with data centers, logistics, and rental housing now comprising nearly 80% of the global equity portfolio. In logistics, our largest exposure to real estate, we're seeing U.S. leasing activity meaningfully re-accelerate. For data centers, it's hard to overstate their importance to impact. The most recent vintages of our BREIT global and Asia strategies, which appreciated 7% and 3.7% in the second quarter, respectively, along with our BXPE U.S. institutional core plus vehicle, and of course, BREIT, are benefiting significantly from their growing exposure to data centers. Overall, AI is helping to drive investment performance across the firm, particularly in the latest vintages of our funds.

[Michael Chae, Vice Chairman and CFO at Blackstone]

In closing, we're in a time of massive demand for capital to fuel historic growth in the most critical areas. Private markets are the solution. For Blackstone, the breadth, scale, and reach of the business we built over four decades have put us in a unique position to be the leader in providing these solutions. Thank you for joining today's call. We would like to open it up now for questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. As a reminder, please press star one to ask a question. We ask you limit yourself to one question to allow as many callers to join the queue as possible. We will take our first question from Glenn Schorr with Evercore.

[Glenn Schorr, Analyst at Evercore]

Hi. Thanks so much. Maybe we'll pick up where you just left off, Michael. I respect all the 20%+ growth numbers that you all ran through. Got a lot of capital raising, ton of dry powder. All the seed planting. The question on base management fees, I heard you on third quarter. Let's just go out to next year where we and the rest of the world is expecting more of a double-digit pickup. Could you possibly talk through some of the building blocks and the pieces that get us there if that happens? Is deployment, the fee holiday roll-offs, credit stabilizing, things like that. That would be helpful. Appreciate it.

[Michael Chae, Vice Chairman and CFO at Blackstone]

Sure, Glenn, thanks. As you heard from my remarks, we have that expectation too about double-digit growth next year. We feel very good about the foundation being put in place. In terms of the building blocks you mentioned, there are a number of fundamental and very positive drivers that support our view. Really are about the embedded growth we see going into next year. First, the full year benefit of the private equity segment drawdowns that we've activated or will activate this year. That's our SP 10 fund, our Asia III fund in BCP, our energy transition fund. The second, I'd say the seasoning and expansion of perpetual strategies, particularly across our flagship private wealth vehicles and our infrastructure platform. As you know, as Jon said, our BXPE NAV $25 billion, that's up 2x year-over-year.

[Michael Chae, Vice Chairman and CFO at Blackstone]

Our infrastructure business up 40% year-over-year, BXINFRA, new product introductions. That is a very positive picture. I would add to that, in BXMA, in a similarly NAV-based business, by and large, AUM's up 21%, performance and net flow activity remain exceptionally strong. In credit, we see underlying positive growth in credit insurance across the institutional insurance channels. We look to an eventual stabilization in retail flows. AUM, as you know, for the whole business, is up 15% year-over-year. Inflows are healthy. The IABC portion of that business, really private investment grade, up in the 20% AUM area year-over-year. The insurance business, AUM up 15% year-over-year. Importantly, and you referenced dry powder, our credit business overall ended the quarter with $84 billion of dry powder, which as you know, largely earns fees as it's invested.

[Michael Chae, Vice Chairman and CFO at Blackstone]

That dry powder balance is over double where it was at the beginning of 2024 and almost a third larger than just the beginning of this year. That's really this built-in sort of coiled spring as it relates to expanding management fee growth. Finally, and importantly, we see stabilization in the real estate base fee trends next year. If you take those pieces together, we think we're well-positioned for a very strong 2027. I would just add finally, in the meantime, as you know, beyond base management fees, the firm today really benefits from a significantly broader fee-generating platform. As the results in this quarter demonstrated, that includes the growing scale and contribution from transaction fees and fee-related performance revenue. In the first half of the year, total fee revenues were up 21%.

[Michael Chae, Vice Chairman and CFO at Blackstone]

We think that it's a very positive picture about 2027. In the meantime, the overall fee revenue base showing strong momentum.

[Glenn Schorr, Analyst at Evercore]

Thanks so much for that

[Operator]

We will take our next question from Alex Blostein with Goldman Sachs.

[Alex Blostein, Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking the question as well. I would love to double-click on what you guys are seeing in the wealth channel. Jon, a couple of positive remarks that I think you mentioned as far as the third quarter goes. Maybe what you're hearing on the ground on BCRED performance year to date, I think is a little challenged still, but sounds like you're seeing some improvement in redemption. Would love to get into that a little more, and then ultimately also on the new products that you launched with Wellington and Vanguard, would love to just get your perspective on how you're planning to scale these products and flow through the management fees ultimately for Blackstone from them.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

Thanks, Alex. The wealth platform is in really terrific shape. AUM, as we mentioned, up 16% year-over-year to $324 billion. We saw a recovery in flows, certainly towards the end of the quarter, which we talked about, sort of in the heart of both the credit and the war. We did see a little bit of a deceleration, and we're now back to the levels we were in the first quarter on a monthly basis. The mix has changed, obviously, with a lot of strength, as you heard, in BXPE, BXINFRA. BREIT has much more momentum, but more muted inflows on BCRED, which given the volume of noise is, to us, not a surprise. I would reaffirm what I said, which is it's early in the quarter, but the redemptions in BCRED are down materially, which is positive.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

I think you've got to look at this overall platform and think about it holistically. The strength of our brand, the strength of our distribution team, our global reach, the performance we've provided, the confidence we built with financial advisors and clients. This is a very special thing that's been built, and we think the potential for it to grow is quite enormous with those initial sort of four flagships. With new product launches, the hedge fund product we talked about, and then to your point, Wellington Vanguard. These are two amazing firms who have long storied histories, who are focused on investment performance as we are.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

The idea of creating products that are one-stop shopping, integrated, where you have all the Blackstone privates together, or the Blackstone privates along with actives, passives, equity, fixed income, putting that together and making it easier for investors to access these products. There are also different standards in terms of where they sit in terms of because of the structures here with Wellington as managers, as opposed to what we have today. A number of our products are limited to qualified purchasers. Here there's a larger universe of potential buyers, and there are folks who want just a, I think, a simpler, easier solution. We're excited. It'll take time, like everything, to build these things, but it's a couple more engines we're adding. I think we do offer something that is really unique. Again, performance, so important.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

If you look at BREIT relative to real estate products, if you look at how BCRED has performed since its inception, if you look at BXPE and BXINFRA over the last couple of years, that is remarkable, which is why we think we have built so much loyalty with the customers.

[Operator]

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

[Michael Cyprys, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. Just want to ask about AI. If AI compute increasingly becomes a scarce economic resource, could we eventually see compute capacity, in your view, emerge as a standalone investable asset class, similar to what we see in real estate infrastructure or energy? Can you talk about how you're positioning for that? Maybe that kind of dovetails with the new REIT BXDC, where you mentioned a massive opportunity to get to $1 trillion. Maybe you could just unpack some of the building blocks and how you see some of the near-term versus medium-term milestones to make progress, and sort of hit that over time. Thank you.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

It's a great question, Mike. We definitely see today a global shortage of compute. There's obviously a lot of dollars being invested, but the dollars are not keeping up with the demand, and we see that on a lot of fronts today. When we talk to our hyperscaler friends, the large language model companies, our friends there, they all would want more capacity. So, as we have this energy shortage in places, there's now some community pushback. We obviously have chip shortages today, memory. It is making it harder to keep up with the pace of demand. I do think ultimately that what that means is those things that are built and operating are worth more. Data centers are a great example of that. We've seen benefits, obviously, for the neoclouds, which can deliver compute more real time.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

I do think what this is going to mean is a market will grow to be very large in the real estate world. We saw this in the mobile tower business. I think we'll see this here. I think BXDC has the potential to grow significantly because there's not just data centers that are owned by the developers and investors like us. There's also an enormous amount of data centers on the balance sheets of the big hyperscalers. If they need more capital, I think you'll see some of these things sold. Then the energy assets also, I think, become increasingly valuable as well, and the infrastructure around that. We've done a lot of investments in the midstream space. Pipelines, LNG, that becomes more valuable. I do believe the components of compute, because of the shortage of compute, will increase in value.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

We've positioned us, particularly in infrastructure, where Sean Klimczak and his team have done just a terrific job, but also in real estate and our energy transition business. We've got a bunch of places where we're exposed to what's happening here. I do think it points to, at least in the near term, a continued shortage, and therefore value is going up.

[Michael Chae, Vice Chairman and CFO at Blackstone]

Mike, it's Michael, I just add that basically almost every business at the firm that we've built over decades is now in position and has acted on this to be a capital solutions provider to this whole ecosystem. Whether it's credit, infrastructure, real estate, energy, private equity, hybrid capital in Tac Opps or BXB vehicle or BXMA area as it relates to more liquid parts of the market. Just this breadth, diversity, and scale of the business we've built puts us in position to basically have a capital pool that can be a solution for every need in this area, and the needs are massive. You mentioned the sort of the single pool of capital. I would just say we can keep innovating. You mentioned BXDC around the existing platform of businesses in a really, I think, exciting way.

[Michael Cyprys, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Great, thank you.

[Operator]

We will take our next question from Craig Siegenthaler with Bank of America.

[Craig Siegenthaler, Analyst at Bank of America]

Hey, good morning, everyone. My question's on real estate. I know this hasn't happened in more than four years, but public REIT stocks are outperforming the S&P 500 year to date. As you know, very few asset classes have been able to keep pace with U.S. large caps. Now, despite this, private real estate returns and opportunistic drawdowns in core plus have still lagged publics. I'm wondering, do you have any line of sight into private returns and also how this could translate into demand for private real estate across your LP base?

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

Well, Craig, I'd start with what's happening on the ground with the fundamentals. There has certainly been a headwind last year with Liberation Day and now this year with the war that have kept rates elevated. Sort of underneath the covers, there are a number of positive things happening, which is why I think the public REIT market has moved. You see that at times that the public markets are more forward-looking. What's happening is there's been a sharp reduction in new supply, and that is starting to have an impact. The area where it's moving first is in logistics, in the warehouse business, which is our biggest asset class. We saw very strong leasing in the first half of the year at our Link Logistics platform in the U.S., which is up 26% in leasing volume.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

We're seeing occupancy now and rents start to increase. Investors are seeing this. We're now seeing some large-scale M&A in the public markets with Prologis, what looks to be likely a successful takeover of a $25 billion logistics company in the U.K. in SEGRO. I think these are good signs. I think this will be the first asset class that really starts to emerge in real estate. That is good for us over time. Yes, the public market anticipates this. We've also seen strength in hotels. Last year, we saw negative same store RevPAR. This year, nationally in the U.S., it's +5%. That's a very positive sign. We've leaned in in places like San Francisco, again, a bit AI derivative. We bought three hotels in the last six months. We feel very good about that.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

Interestingly, in the office market, which has been in a tough spot for a number of years, in a place like New York, vacancy's fallen from 21.5% to 14.5%, which is a very good sign. We're also seeing, you mentioned the public REIT market, which is strong, but the public debt market, the CMBS market, volumes are up 23%. I would say near term headwind slowing things down because of rates moving up. I think once we get past the war and we see that start to settle down, the underlying strength in fundamentals and investors' desire to invest in hard assets in a world where there's a lot of uncertainty, I think you'll begin to see this real estate recovery in the private sector pick up pace.

[Craig Siegenthaler, Analyst at Bank of America]

Thanks, Jon.

[Operator]

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

[Bill Katz, Analyst at TD Cowen]

Great. Thank you very much for taking the question. Maybe just a big picture question to change topics for a second. I was listening to Steve's comments about Blackstone being a cheap way to play the opportunity in AI and infrastructure, and we would agree wholeheartedly with that. How does that inform your views on capital return from here? Stock is down significantly from its highs, obviously bouncing a bit today, which is great to see. You have a big payout. Any thoughts of maybe rejiggering the payout rate, stepping in on buyback a little bit versus internal growth? Maybe how you're just thinking about capital allocation from here. Thank you.

[Michael Chae, Vice Chairman and CFO at Blackstone]

Hey, Bill. Thanks. It's Michael. Yeah, look, I think we've been committed to our capital policy for a long time, which as you know is basically returning 100% over time of our cash earnings back in the form of our dividend, which I think today is at 4x the S&P yield on a yield basis. Then also a more moderate but sort of consistent buyback program all to add up to that sort of total return of our cash earnings. We think over the long run, that's been a sound policy for us. It does reflect sort of our business model and the relative capital light orientation of it. We certainly have scope to look at that over time and more opportunistic use of capital as it relates to the stock.

[Michael Chae, Vice Chairman and CFO at Blackstone]

We try to be consistent and committed to our policy, that's kind of where we are today on that.

[Bill Katz, Analyst at TD Cowen]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Brian Bedell with Deutsche Bank.

[Brian Bedell, Analyst at Deutsche Bank]

Great. Thanks. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Maybe just to go back to the really strong momentum in fundraising. It looks like you're now on pace to potentially match or exceed your record year in 2021. Maybe just talk about the confidence in that. I know there's different timing, of course, with the drawdown funds. As you think about it more broadly, just thinking about that growth momentum across private wealth, credit, obviously the whole AI and data center theme, and increasing inflows in insurance, are you expecting that fundraising pace, even after potentially a really strong year this year, to actually continue to grow into 2027 and longer term beyond?

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

Brian, it's a good question. It's hard to put your finger on it. What we can point to is that we've been in a world of pretty high volatility, I think it speaks to the resilience and breadth of this franchise. We've managed to raise, obviously, very significant amounts of money, and we're doing it across all three of these channels. You heard about it on the institutional side, where we have a number of funds that are exceeding their hard cap in terms of demand. We talked about our BXMA business, which has really renewed momentum. Our infrastructure business, which I think will continue to grow at a really breathtaking pace. It is a bit slower in real estate, remarkably, that business, despite its slowness in fundraising, we're still producing these very strong results.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

When we get to the other side on real estate, that gives me a lot of confidence with the firm overall and where fundraising can move to. On the insurance side, we continue to see clients responding. I mean, we were up 15% to $290 billion in insurance. Those clients really appreciate the premium return we can deliver over comparably rated investment-grade credit. To Michael's point, we're doing these large corporate solutions that are so needed in the energy space, in the digital infrastructure space, I think we'll continue to gain clients in that area as well. Then wealth, despite all the negative headlines, everything, again, up 16% year-over-year to $324 billion. A range of existing products that have delivered and then new products coming online. I think the thing about Blackstone is just the strength of the brand we've built.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

It is recognized globally by investors. They trust the firm. They trust us across multiple channels, that is enabling us to continue to grow without having to borrow money or utilize capital at scale. We really like where we are. We do think in terms of outlook, if we get a more settled landscape, war ending, inflation, rates coming down, that'll be very helpful for the business. We've got a lot of confidence on the fundraising outlook over time.

[Brian Bedell, Analyst at Deutsche Bank]

Okay. That's a great perspective. Thank you.

[Operator]

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

[Dan Fannon, Analyst at Jefferies]

Thanks. Good morning. I guess based on the outlook you gave for management fees for the second half and next year, how should we think about margins in that context, particularly as we think about next year, given the growth rates that are expected from the management fee side?

[Michael Chae, Vice Chairman and CFO at Blackstone]

Dan, it's Michael. It's early around margins for next year. As I said, we're pretty confident about the top line, and we're also confident about our ability to manage expenses and deliver over time operating leverage. I think we're not going to give a specific viewpoint on that other than to reiterate structurally, we like our margin position.

[Operator]

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Bart Dziarski with RBC Capital Markets.

[Bart Dziarski, Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

Great. Thanks for taking the question. Good morning, everyone. I wanted to dive into the transaction fees. Very strong quarter, looked broad-based across private equity, real estate credit. Are there any lumpy items to call out there? Then Michael, you talked about this fee stream being underappreciated. Maybe unpack that a little bit for us and what we should be expecting going forward. Thanks.

[Michael Chae, Vice Chairman and CFO at Blackstone]

Yeah. I think that it's really stepping back about the scaling of the firm, the broadening of the firm, the surface area for transaction activity, financings, advisory services that can generate these revenues. That led to this record quarter in a record first half. That probably, in recent years, has been underappreciated, but it's obviously coming to the fore now. In terms of lumpiness for the quarter, I think in particular, what's emerged as a really new avenue for this area are these customized capital solutions, these corporate solutions, private investment grade in the credit insurance area. There's a substantial opportunity for investment grade-rated corporates where we've become a trusted solutions provider. That, as it relates to transactions in those areas, those can lead to attractive revenues in this area.

[Michael Chae, Vice Chairman and CFO at Blackstone]

There'll be some variability to that occurring from time to time, but that's a newer sort of strategic area that will continue to grow. I'd just say while there will be quarter-to-quarter variability in this revenue stream, we do have a considerable pipeline in place for the second half of the year, and the underlying baseline just continues to grow, and our trajectory has been upward. It's really about the expansion of the ecosystem across areas like private credit, infrastructure, and so forth.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

Yeah, I would just say to Michael's point, as the asset base grows, there's just more activity around that asset base. You can see that areas like digital infrastructure, energy, there's just more and more capital needs, and it's really tied directly to our AUM in a lot of ways. I do think you're beginning to see this really structural step up in earnings from this area.

[Bart Dziarski, Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

Great. Very helpful. Thanks so much.

[Operator]

We will take our next question from Brennan Hawken with BMO Capital Markets.

[Brennan Hawken, Analyst at BMO Capital Markets]

Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. We'd love to drill down a little bit on realizations. We've been waiting for recovery and realizations for some time. You added some color about that ramping in 4Q and into 2027. Could you maybe help us contextualize that expectation? Are there any historical periods that you would point to as a proxy? How reliant is it on market conditions, which has sort of been, I think, part of the trouble with trying to nail down timing on this cycle.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

Well, I'll just comment on the history. If you recall, obviously in 2008, 2009, we had very little in the way of realizations, and the engine didn't really ramp back up that time. It was probably 2013. Over that ensuing period, we had very significant realizations. Here we've now been in a period of basically four years with some similarities. Maybe not as sharp a downturn, but this sort of long period of recovery. Short rates have come down. Obviously, the IPO market has started to reopen, and it felt earlier in the year, pre the war, that this was going to really accelerate. Now it's been delayed a bit, but ultimately, I think we know where this is heading.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

I think we do have confidence as we look out towards the end of the year and into 2027, that we are going to see a pickup.

[Michael Chae, Vice Chairman and CFO at Blackstone]

I'd just add on to that. I mean broadly that this has been an uneven recovery in terms of the realization environment. It is one we think will continue to strengthen. I guess a few particular areas where we're seeing particular momentum. First, I'd say obviously, and as Jon talked about, the IPO market strengthened considerably. We've had additional IPOs on file. We've been very active, and that's going to provide a foundation for greater realizations over time as these companies season. In the corporate private equity complex, about 1/3 of its receivable balance, its NAPR balance, is publicly traded and it's growing. As we do more IPOs, that will create more public market cap in our portfolio, and that'll continue to grow that public NAPR, which is obviously liquid and more easy to translate into net realization.

[Michael Chae, Vice Chairman and CFO at Blackstone]

Second, I'd say within energy transition, there the receivable balance has roughly doubled in a year, and that really reflects the portfolio we've built around the AI and power ecosystem. There is in that area, the active M&A market. There's active private sales both to strategics and other sponsors. We announced something yesterday on this front. That is a sector that I think is very fertile right now. Third, BXMA. We have a scheduled as usual year-end crystallizations in BXMA. It's performing very well year to date, as you've heard. That is scheduled for the fourth quarter. Where we sit today, that should be quite robust. Overall, if you step back, as I mentioned my remarks, despite the choppiness and the capital markets sort of volatility, the NAPR overall for the firm has grown to its highest level in four years.

[Michael Chae, Vice Chairman and CFO at Blackstone]

We like the position we're in, but as always, we're going to pick the right time to translate this into realizations and sales over time.

[Brennan Hawken, Analyst at BMO Capital Markets]

Thanks for that color.

[Operator]

We will take our next question from Mike Brown with UBS.

[Mike Brown, Analyst at UBS]

Great, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Jon, I wanted to dive in a little bit more to BCRED. You made the comments about the withdrawals are slowing here, and we're in the early stages of 3Q. Curious if you think that some of these withdrawals will continue to ease as you move into the onshore redemption window. Maybe just unpack a little bit about what you're hearing from advisors. What do you think is kind of driving that reduction in the withdrawals? Has it been that performance has actually held up quite well, we haven't really seen much in terms of credit issues come through? Or has it been some of the dialogue and education that you've been having with the advisor channel that has really helped ease some of that redemption pressure that we've observed in the prior couple of quarters? Thank you.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

I think it's an important question. I would say as much as anything, it's the level of noise has come down. I think a lot of people were calling for this massive calamity, and when the calamity did not occur, I think sort of the press, what you see on TV or Twitter or in newspapers, that has calmed. Which before obviously was getting clients understandably nervous. They would pick up the newspaper and say, "Private credit faces this massive problem," and they would call their financial advisor, and that did create a dynamic. I think the key here is what happens in the fullness of time, and do you protect investor capital? Do you deliver positive returns despite all this noise? I think that's what is going to actually happen. I would attribute to that, yes, we've done a ton of investor outreach calls.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

Meetings with investors, financial advisors around the world. Yes, I think some of it's the reality. I think this is just natural when these sort of things occur. I actually think what's helpful, because we went through this with BREIT in the past. We're obviously today in a very different place. We're going to go through this with BCRED. I'm sure at some point here we're going to be in a very different place. What financial advisors and their clients are going to realize, these are long-term products. If they're in the hands of responsible managers who understand valuation and liquidity, they can deliver premium returns. That's been the key to BCRED over time, as it is with all of our products. The short answer is the level of noise coming down has definitely been helpful.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

I think the facts on the ground are also helpful. I think we will work our way through this. There's obviously some carryover from unfulfilled redemptions last quarter, but we will work through that over time. I feel when I look out into the future, I think BCRED will continue to be a very strong product for us.

[Mike Brown, Analyst at UBS]

Great. Thanks, Jon.

[Operator]

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Devin Ryan with Citizens Bank.

[Devin Ryan, Analyst at Citizens Bank]

Thanks. Good morning. A follow-up question on the data center opportunity. The scarcity dynamics that you described would seem very supportive of the value that's already in the portfolio and what you already own. As you think about deploying the next dollar, do you see the prospective returns being as attractive as what's already in the portfolio? Essentially just trying to think about obviously higher exit prices, greater competition, potentially eating into that a little bit, versus the flip side of that, which would be the supply-demand dynamics you talked about. Maybe it's just too early to start thinking about this, but would love just some sense on how you're thinking about return opportunity going forward there with the dollars coming in. Thanks.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

It's a very different dynamic than typical investment cycles like this, where something generates very high returns, then you get an enormous supply shock coming back the other way, which drives down returns. In this case, because building the compute is so difficult, it's very hard to get the chips today. It's very hard to get the power. It's very hard to get the entitlements. That is meaning that the supply is not matching. The other thing worth noting is because these are very customized and very large, you don't get that sort of Miami condo effect. Prices go up and people go out and spec build. These are all long-term contracted for the most part. So you're seeing at this point the shortage is does somebody have an entitled and powered site?

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

The fact that we've been doing this now for a long time, not just in the United States., but in Europe and Asia, we're beginning to see data center demand really start to pick up. That's going to make a difference. Today, we have 15 GW of sites globally that can support $200 billion of data centers where we have the entitlements, and we have the access to power. That today is really the scarce commodity, and that's why the pricing for building these things and the returns has not changed. I don't really see much going forward that's going to change that dynamic. It's why we've made such an enormous investment globally in this area, and why we think it'll continue to deliver very favorable returns. We've expanded our capabilities with some of the investments we've made in neoclouds around the globe as well.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

We're playing this in a number of different ways. At the end of the day, there is a global shortage of compute, and if you can deliver that, you can earn attractive returns on capital.

[Devin Ryan, Analyst at Citizens Bank]

Great. Thank you.

[Operator]

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

[Steven Chubak, Analyst at Wolfe Research]

Hi, good morning, and thanks for taking my question. I was hoping

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

Good morning

[Steven Chubak, Analyst at Wolfe Research]

I was hoping to drill down into the insurance opportunity. I was hoping to just get an update on what you're seeing in terms of flow momentum, new partnerships. You're clearly seeing really strong growth this year in the mid-teens range, but wanted to just gauge whether based on the constructive outlook that you provided, whether the expectation is for that to be sustained or whether you envisage a potential acceleration as we look out to over the next couple of years.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

I would say as at a baseline, what we're seeing now in insurers, and obviously it started in the life annuity space, but it's starting to spread out to the P&C area as well, is a recognition that you need these tools to compete in the marketplace, that private investment-grade credit can deliver to you higher returns at the same or higher ratings levels. That is very attractive. These clients have the ability to absorb illiquidity for a portion of their portfolio. That is sort of the underlying precept that is supporting what's happening here. We're seeing more and more clients move in this direction. As we form these SMAs, we typically start in one area, and then we start to do it in different areas.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

In terms of the rate of growth, that will be, I think, a function of both the continued growth of the platform, which we have a lot of momentum in. Also when we get these new strategic partnerships, those can give you sort of a step function increase. I would say just as a general matter, spending a lot of time with these insurance clients, they like what's happening here. This is something they want to do. It's something they need for competitive purposes.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

They like the fact that they can actually reduce their risk level because if you're just dependent on liquid fixed income, you've got to migrate down to BBB or BBB-. You've got to take more risk there, and then you've got to have a very, with your small alternatives or equity portfolio, take maximum risk because liquid fixed income today, everything there that's investment grade is basically sub 100 over. The fact that we can produce things with meaningful premiums to that, and in many cases, better ratings, that is attractive. This is a structural trend. As you know, we do this with the open architecture model. We're not out there competing against them. We're serving them the way long-only fixed income managers have done for insurance companies for a long time.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

The other thing I would just add, the reason why I think we're scaling is you need scale, particularly in the world we're going into. You need to be able to write large checks. Today it's really us and some of our other private equity firms who've got a bit of a different model who are out there competing in this arena. I think it's going to continue. I think the momentum will grow. It's hard to put a finger on exactly what the growth rates will be.

[Operator]

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Ken Worthington with JPMorgan.

[Ken Worthington, Analyst at JPMorgan]

Hi, good morning. Maybe just following up on that. You announced a strategic partnership with Nippon Life. You've got 40 insurance partnerships. As you look to these existing insurance partnerships, what is the opportunity to take them beyond the initial scope of the agreements? Can you build on it? Does this play out sort of formally or is it informally over time?

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

It's a good question, Ken. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I would guess that the majority of the growth that you see today certainly comes from the big strategics and then some of the original SMAs. The propensity to want to do more is high. We typically start with call it $500 million. A number of these partnerships have started to grow into the multiple billions because once they see and get comfortable with the risk return, there's always a little bit of like, "Hey, what are you doing here?" A sense, I want to understand this. We spend more and more time. Nippon Life is a great example of that. We've been building this partnership with them over five plus years. We've worked closely with them at Corebridge and at Resolution. They see the way we operate.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

They see the various asset classes, our capabilities in residential, consumer finance, commercial lending, digital, energy, traditional infrastructure. They see what we're doing, and they're comfortable with the approach, our underwriting approach. I would say another advantage of our business is because we have such a large equity investing business, we have great insights on the credit side. We also generate a lot of flow because we see things, have access to things, given our positioning in the marketplace. I think what you'll see is growth in the existing relationships, certainly. Every time we get a new client on, the path is to continue to serve them in a good way and expand the products they touch with us.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

That's why this has become an area where we think we can do more, and we're also seeing some more and more interest from them in some of our traditional drawdown funds as well. They've become bigger buyers of that as we build this relationship. We spend more time with the key investment professionals and the CIOs. The key is to deliver returns and of course, because it's investment grade, not have losses.

[Ken Worthington, Analyst at JPMorgan]

Thank you.

[Operator]

We will take our next question from Benjamin Budish with Barclays Capital.

[Benjamin Budish, Analyst at Barclays Capital]

Hi, good morning, and thanks for taking the question. You addressed this a little bit earlier in the discussion around realizations, but I'm curious if you could unpack a little bit more what you're seeing specifically in terms of sponsor and strategic-backed M&A. It feels like this is part of the market. You've been quite bullish on IPOs, but it feels like this is part of the market that's been a little slower to come back, especially on the sponsor back side. There's also implications for the direct lending business in your credit segment. Just curious if you could talk about what's going on there. What does the near-term outlook look like for specifically middle market M&A? Thank you.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

I'd say it's sort of a tale of maybe three cities. There's those companies in the AI area, electrical equipment, utility services, some of the energy businesses in and around natural gas, renewables, obviously the data centers, all of that, the suppliers into that chain. They're both in the IPO, the M&A market, private equity. The bids are strong, the pricing is good, and you've begun to see from us some sales. Michael referenced the $7 billion battery storage business we sold just yesterday. I think that's one part of the world. The second would be, I'd call it sort of the AI unaffected businesses. There, let's call that fast food chains, things in the medical supply area, things that are generally pretty unaffected by what's going on. And there, I would say the bid is pretty strong, both in the IPO market and again in the private market.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

Not as strong as the first category, but an area where there is liquidity in the debt and equity market. I think the exception today is when you get into these sort of white collar services, professional information services, enterprise software. Even if the businesses are performing well, we have a number of businesses in that area that are performing well. There's just a sort of high quotient of uncertainty, and it's making buyers more cautious. That's where you've seen less liquidity. That's where you're seeing the part of the private equity market where you won't see a ton of DPI, and I think that's going to be there for a while. I think what you'll see is multiples have come down, and people's expectations will have to come down.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

I think people are going to have to understand better, can some of these companies survive and thrive? Some of them certainly will. Then they may get re-rated higher. That's the part of the market which has definitely slowed down.

[Benjamin Budish, Analyst at Barclays Capital]

Okay. Thank you for that, Jon.

[Operator]

We will take our next question from Arnaud Giblat with BNP Paribas.

[Arnaud Giblat, Analyst at BNP Paribas]

Thank you. Good morning. Actually, my question might follow on this one. I was wondering if you could unpack the value creation private equity infrastructure for us. I assume that mix been strong in Q2, perhaps it's following these three buckets.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

Well, I think the value creation story at our companies today is obviously about making them as AI-forward as possible. We announced this new company we created with Anthropic called Ode to accelerate deployment at our companies and ultimately service other companies as well. The idea here is how can we transform these businesses. In the case of some of the businesses, certainly the software companies, it's something that impacts the entire business. We've seen some really powerful examples. We own a software company called Energy Exemplar that helps utilities manage electricity traffic and simulate. That used to be a product that would take a week, and the customer almost needed a Ph.D. It was very complex. The AI is creating a much more simplified, faster. Now it's something that takes basically hours, and the user can utilize this in a much more simple way.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

It's a good example of what we're doing. We're bringing it to customer service and things like Great Wolf Resorts. We're innovating new products in our garage door opening business, Chamberlain, our digital doorman business that's been created, that's now a $40 million business from scratch they think can grow 10x or 15x over the next five years. I would say the value creation is how do you incorporate this? For the businesses that are less affected, how can they serve their customers better? How can they operate more efficiently? We're fortunate to have a really terrific portfolio operations team led by Rodney Zemmel, who used to run AI at McKinsey, and this is a key focus for us. It's not just in the investing side of the business, it's also adding value to our portfolio companies.

[Operator]

Thank you. We'll take our final question from Patrick Davitt with Autonomous Research.

[Patrick Davitt, Analyst at Autonomous Research]

Hey, good morning, everyone. Jon, maybe this was blasted out of context, but I see a headline on the screen from, I think, a Bloomberg interview saying, quote, "Deals from non-AI firms will be muted for a while." Could you unpack that comment and in particular add any color on what asset classes and/or strategies you expect to be most muted? Thank you.

[Jon Gray, President and COO at Blackstone]

Well, we should correct that, because what I said, I think it was on a Bloomberg interview this morning, was I walked through that same sort of three different cities thing, which is the AI companies, the AI unaffected companies where there's a lot of interest in buying those. I talked about sort of the white-collar world. That is where I said there's less activity, the professional, the information services, and the software companies. That's the area where I said there'd be less activity. That's probably 30%-40% of the overall private equity market. Software for us as a firm is around 6% of our exposures across the firm. That's where I said there'd be less activity just because of the uncertainty that exists.

[Patrick Davitt, Analyst at Autonomous Research]

Okay. Makes sense. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. That will conclude our question and answer session. At this time, I'd like to turn the call back over to Weston Tucker for any additional or closing remarks.

[Weston Tucker, Head of Shareholder Relations at Blackstone]

Great. Thank you everyone for joining us today. Look forward to following up after the call.

Participants

Executives

• Weston Tucker, Head of Shareholder Relations
• Steve Schwarzman, Chairman and CEO
• Jon Gray, President and COO
• Michael Chae, Vice Chairman and CFO

Analysts

• Glenn Schorr, Analyst at Evercore
• Alex Blostein, Analyst at Goldman Sachs
• Michael Cyprys, Analyst at Morgan Stanley
• Craig Siegenthaler, Analyst at Bank of America
• Bill Katz, Analyst at TD Cowen
• Brian Bedell, Analyst at Deutsche Bank
• Dan Fannon, Analyst at Jefferies
• Bart Dziarski, Analyst at RBC Capital Markets
• Brennan Hawken, Analyst at BMO Capital Markets
• Mike Brown, Analyst at UBS
• Devin Ryan, Analyst at Citizens Bank
• Steven Chubak, Analyst at Wolfe Research
• Ken Worthington, Analyst at JPMorgan
• Benjamin Budish, Analyst at Barclays Capital
• Arnaud Giblat, Analyst at BNP Paribas
• Patrick Davitt, Analyst at Autonomous Research