Blackstone co-founder and CEO Stephen Schwarzman has been making the media rounds this week to promote his newly released autobiography, “What It Takes: Lessons in the Pursuit of Excellence.”
And while he’s made no mention on air of an anticipated Blackstone buyout fund expected to surpass $25 billion, the mega-billionaire appears to confirm in his book that the firm’s eighth flagship buyout vehicle has raised a record $26 billion. That figure surpasses Apollo Global Management‘s most recent flagship buyout fund in 2017, which raised $24.6 billion, as well as Blackstone’s $21.7 billion vehicle that it raised in 2007.
“In 2019, Joe [Baratta] raised the largest private equity fund in the world, Blackstone Capital Partners VIII, with $26 billion in committed capital, a record for our industry,” Schwarzman says in his book. “It was more than 30 times the size of our first private equity fund, the fund [co-founder] Pete [Peterson] and I pounded the pavement relentlessly to raise in 1987.”
Blackstone’s latest flagship vehicle had reportedly been seeking $25 billion, which already marked a massive step-up from a predecessor that raised some $18.9 billion and finished in the top quartile of its fund benchmark, per PitchBook data. The news comes the same week that Blackstone announced the closing of its ninth flagship global real estate fund on $20.5 billion, its highest total ever for a real estate vehicle. And just a few days after Bloomberg revealed that the firm was in talks to buy the MGM Grand and Bellagio hotels in Las Vegas.
It’s been a huge fundraising year across verticals for the asset manager/private equity giant. In July, Blackstone closed its eighth flagship secondaries fund on $11.1 billion and held a $14 billion close on its open-ended debut infrastructure fund, the latter of which has received a $20 billion long-term matching anchor commitment from the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. Blackstone’s goal is to have $1 trillion in AUM by 2026; the firm had $545 billion AUM at the end of 2Q, per its latest earnings report.
It’s also been a big year for private equity fundraising at large. In June, Advent International closed its ninth flagship fund on $17.5 billion, surpassing a predecessor that raised $13 billion in 2016. Tech-focused Vista Equity Partners also closed its latest buyout fund on $16 billion, and Thoma Bravo raised $12.6 billion for its 13th flagship. Here’s a look at how private equity fundraising in the US has fared since 2010:
As for Blackstone, look for dealmaking to continue at a frenetic pace, given how much capital it now has to spend. Earlier this week, the firm agreed to a reverse merger with Vivint Smart Home worth some $5.6 billion and announced the purchase of Dream Global REIT in a C$6.2 billion (about $4.7 billion) deal on the same day.
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Related read: Blackstone closes its biggest fund ever—for now
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