Blackstone reported strong Q1 FY2026 results with distributable earnings up 25% YoY, driven by fee growth and realizations. Management highlighted massive AI infrastructure investments, resilience in private credit despite negative headlines, and a broadening platform across institutional and wealth channels. The tone was confident, with expectations for robust activity if Middle East conflict resolves. Distributable EPS of $1.36, up 25% YoY; fee-related earnings up 23% to $1.5B.
Blackstone reported strong Q1 FY2026 results with distributable earnings up 25% YoY, driven by fee growth and realizations. Management highlighted massive AI infrastructure investments, resilience in private credit despite negative headlines, and a broadening platform across institutional and wealth channels. The tone was confident, with expectations for robust activity if Middle East conflict resolves. Distributable EPS of $1.36, up 25% YoY; fee-related earnings up 23% to $1.5B.
Management emphasized Blackstone's position as the largest investor in AI-related infrastructure, with over $150 billion in data centers and a $160 billion pipeline, and expects AI to catalyze opportunities across other business lines like life sciences. They believe the AI…
Management emphasized Blackstone's position as the largest investor in AI-related infrastructure, with over $150 billion in data centers and a $160 billion pipeline, and expects AI to catalyze opportunities across other business lines like life sciences. They believe the AI…
AUM reached record $1.3T, with $69B inflows in Q1; nearly all flagship strategies appreciated.
Total data center portfolio over $150B with $160B pipeline; largest private investor in U.S. electric grid and natural gas pipelines.
Management emphasized Blackstone's position as the largest investor in AI-related infrastructure, with over $150 billion in data centers and a $160 billion pipeline, and expects AI to catalyze opportunities across other business lines like life sciences. They believe the AI revolution is a profound shift toward hard assets and will be a key driver of growth and performance.
Despite geopolitical volatility and negative press on private credit, management is bullish on firm's growth prospects driven by AI infrastructure, broad fundraising, and resilient portfolio performance.
Blackstone is significantly investing in AI infrastructure, including data centers and energy infrastructure, with a large pipeline of development. They also highlighted the need for capital to build out AI infrastructure exceeding public market capacity, and are expanding into investment-grade private credit to fund this.
Management expressed strong confidence in the firm's positioning across AI infrastructure, private credit resilience, and fundraising momentum, despite acknowledging near-term headwinds from volatility and negative press.
“The portfolio now carries a weighted average mark of 96.4, including the bottom 5% of loans at less than 70 cents.”
“Our portfolio also includes the longest cross-country network of natural gas pipelines in the U.S., with this resource expected to account for approximately half of data center power generation within the next five years.”
“In fact, in our credit portfolio, our software businesses were the best performing sector.”
“Our total portfolio now consists of over $150 billion of data centers globally... and it continues to grow rapidly with an additional $160 billion in prospective pipeline development.”
Blackstone has a contractual IMA with Corebridge managing $80B in assets; the merger with Equitable may expand opportunities.
“So we view this as an exciting opportunity for CoreBridge with their merger with Equitable.”
Yeah, good morning. My question is regarding the Corbridge and equitable merger. I was wondering how this will affect your investment management partnership with Corbridge. I was wondering if there are risks to the assets or indeed if there's perhaps a growth opportunity to grow the partnership through the merger. And also, what's your plan for your 12% stake in Corbridge? Thank you.
So we view this as an exciting opportunity for CoreBridge with their merger with Equitable. As it relates to our existing IMA with them, we have a contractual relationship where we're entitled to manage $92.5 billion of assets. So long as we meet certain performance thresholds, I think we're at around $80 billion today. We expect that will continue to grow. More importantly, we've delivered very strong performance for CoreBridge and its balance sheet. On average, across our insurance clients, as we mentioned, we've delivered 180 basis point premium relative to comparably rated investment grade credits. And our hope here is as the joint balance sheet expands that we can do similar things for equitable. Obviously, we haven't gotten into any of the details. It's early days. The merger hasn't been approved. But we would love to try to expand what we do for the combined company. Our base business remains secure, and we look at this as a potential opportunity to expand because we think we can continue to deliver these premium for insurance policy holders on the equitable side. But we'll have to wait and see. Oh, I didn't comment on our stake. You know, obviously now we're in a merger period. We're going to wait and see. We think Corbridge represents very compelling value on the screen of where it trades today. I think this merger has to go through. We're long-term investors. We believe in this compound, in the combination of these companies. And ultimately at some point, because we run a capital light business, we'll recycle that capital, but we don't expect that in the near term.
Blackstone owns equity in Anthropic via its wealth channel, signaling exposure to frontier AI models.
“we've also invested in several of the leading innovators driving the AI revolution itself, such as Anthropic and OpenAI, primarily through our wealth platform.”
… investor in the utility sector over the past several years. Our portfolio also includes the longest cross-country network of natural gas pipelines in the U.S., with this resource expected to account for approximately half of data center power generation within the next five years. Additionally, We are major providers of private credit to energy companies. Alongside our expansive platforms in digital and energy infrastructure, we've also invested in several of the leading innovators driving the AI revolution itself, such as Anthropic and OpenAI, primarily through our wealth platform. In addition to these winning areas, we expect AI to catalyze new opportunities across other Blackstone business lines, such as life sciences, where we believe AI will accelerate advancements in biomedical research. At the same time, the firm has significant exposure to physical assets, which we believe are well insulated from disruption and benefit from their own positive tailwinds, including logistics, residential real estate, transportation and communications infrastructure, and many forms of asset-based credit. We also own fast-growing franchise businesses that are effectively royalty streams …