Blackstone’s private wealth segment’s performance for the first quarter – announced alongside overall group results last week – comes at a time when parts of the private market space have been roiled by redemptions in private credit funds.
US-listed Blackstone, which is a
major player in the private markets space and something of a
bellwether for its health, said late last week that net
attributable income rose to $649.7 million in the first three
months of 2026, up from $614 million a year earlier. Management
and advisory fees rose; total revenues rose to $3.62 billion from
$3.29 billion a year earlier.
Like some of its peers, the firm has built a private wealth
offering to tap demand from private banks, wealth managers and
family offices. Blackstone said private wealth assets under
management rose 14 pr cent year-over-year to $310 billion,
marking nearly a threefold increase over the past five years.
First quarter sales on the private wealth platform were $10
billion, with strong product-level performance led by BXPE.
“Our private wealth platform continued to shine in Q1. Looking
forward, we remain very optimistic about our prospects in the
vast and underpenetrated private wealth channel. Our innovation
is accelerating, and we have a multitude of products in the
pipeline…Meanwhile, we’re seeing positive developments in the
defined contribution channel, with the regulatory rule-making
process well underway. Overall, there is huge runway before us in
private wealth,” Jon Gray, Blackstone’s COO and president,
said.
In recent weeks, there have been heavy redemptions – pegged by
some (Business Insider, 23 April, and others) at almost
$20 billion from private credit funds for wealthy individuals. In
a conference call on the figures last week, Blackstone’s CEO
Steve Schwartzman was quoted as saying that the firm is
“navigating an intensely negative campaign against the private
credit sector,” and that we should “separate the fact from the
fiction.”
In its statement, Schwartzman said of the results in general:
“Blackstone delivered outstanding first quarter results despite
the turbulent environment, highlighted by almost $70 billion of
inflows and positive appreciation across nearly all of our
flagship strategies. Our all-weather model protects us in these
times of disruption while also allowing us to invest where we see
the greatest opportunity.”
In its details on private credit and insurance, Blackstone said
total AuM in this area rose 18 per cent year-on-year in Q1 to
$457.5 billion, with inflows of $37 billion in the quarter. Those
inflows in Q1 included $17.3 billion for the global direct
lending strategy. The fifth opportunistic private credit strategy
held its final close and hit its hard cap with inflows of $2.0
billion in the quarter, bringing total investable capital to over
$10.0 billion.