Blackstone reported a good quarterly overnight, with earnings and activity accelerating as lower rates and improved financing conditions reignited dealmaking. Management described the environment as reaching “escape velocity” – language we haven’t heard since pre-COVID. After two years of subdued exits and cautious capital deployment, Blackstone is once again doing what it does best: realising assets, recycling capital, and raising fresh money at scale.
Financial highlights (quarterly)
- Earnings per share (EPS) $1.75 vs $1.54 consensus
- Net realisations from exits: +59% QoQ, highest level in more than three years
- Assets under management (AUM): $1.27 trillion total
- Quarterly inflows:$71bn in Q4 alone,
- Dry powder: ~$198bn available for deployment, including $52.8bn earmarked for real estate
Blackstone is positioning infrastructure, energy and data centres as the “picks and shovels” of the AI buildout, and they have plenty of exposure across private equity, infrastructure and credit. Exit markets are re-opening which will lead to improving liquidity and fee generation. They did highlight private credit, saying returns will moderate as base rates fall, but argues the spread premium vs public markets remains durable.
Despite the earnings beat, shares fell ~3.6% post-result given expectations for alternative managers are high, and sentiment remains sensitive to rate outlook.
We think BX remain well positioned to capaitalise on better markets for dealmaking, and they’ve shown good momentum across exits, fundraising and deployment, supported by one of the strongest balance sheets in global finance. If activity continues to normalise through 2026, the earnings power embedded in its $1.27tn platform will shine through.
MM remains long and bullish BX US ~US$140
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