Blackstone’s real-estate enterprise is completely positive, so please cease asking about it

Virtually Friday! Dan DeFrancesco in NYC, and I am celebrating the tip to our lengthy nationwide nightmare: Tom Brady’s retirement. In case you actually hate your self, listed below are 23 photographs from his profession together with 20 belongings you most likely did not learn about him.

On faucet, we have tales on one other government departing Goldman Sachs’ Marcus, Europe’s hottest fintechs, and a few photographs of that loopy rooftop pool in Singapore.

However first, go away Blackstone alone!

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1. Nothing to see right here! 

Blackstone’s real-estate enterprise is actually positive, everybody.

Sure, the private-equity big needed to restrict traders from pulling their cash out from the $69 billion Blackstone Actual Property Revenue Belief (BREIT) in December.

And sure, it is true that Blackstone turned to the College of California to bolster the fund by saying not one, however two, investments inside the course of a month, totaling $4.5 billion at very beneficiant phrases.

And sure, it is also true that Blackstone needed to inform traders once more on Wednesday that traders have been pulling cash from BREIT. The fund hit its month-to-month redemption restrict in January, Blackstone mentioned in a discover posted on its web site.

And sure, Blackstone additionally introduced some management adjustments on Wednesday that positioned longtime government Frank Cohen to now deal with BREIT whereas Wesley LePatner was tapped to take over for Cohen as head of Core+, the agency’s wider core real-estate funding technique. Cohen can even tackle a newly created function of Core+ chairman.

That is along with A.J. Murphy, an government at Commonplace Investments, serving as Blackstone’s new COO of company personal fairness and Heather von Zuben’s appointment as COO of Blackstone’s credit score arm.

It is true all this information comes as Blackstone is making ready to wage conflict with tenants who reside in buildings it owns by both elevating their lease or outright evicting them. In actual fact, Blackstone-owned firms have already filed eviction lawsuits in opposition to tons of of tenants in Georgia and Florida, per the Monetary Instances.

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And Blackstone did additionally miss on its fourth-quarter earnings and fall in need of its aim of reaching $1 trillion in belongings by 2022.

However every part is completely positive. In actual fact, as CEO Stephen Schwarzman and president Jon Grey each identified on the fourth-quarter earnings name, it is really the media that is ruining all of the enjoyable. (Wait, what?)

“The response to our efficiency has been extraordinarily optimistic. In 2022, our gross sales within the personal wealth channel totaled a outstanding $48 billion, not precisely what you are listening to within the media,” Schwarzman mentioned, in response to a transcript of the decision by analysis supplier Sentieo.

“The media has created a unique narrative, however the prospects are basically glad. That is why I consider because the world normalizes, we’ll once more start to see flows,” Grey added.

As a lot as I take pleasure in poking enjoyable at Blackstone, Schwarzman and Grey aren’t essentially mistaken, to a level. You possibly can’t actually decide a fund like BREIT on a month-to-month foundation. The fund posted a 8.4% return in 2022 and 12.5% return since its inception, in response to Blackstone’s web site.

Nonetheless, regardless of how a lot the 2 executives want to spin it, you can also’t deny it has been a troublesome few months for Blackstone’s real-estate enterprise.

If I’d provide some unsolicited recommendation, maybe the difficulty is notion.

Luxurious watchmaker Patek Philippe has a well-known slogan that’s each genius and vomit-inducing:

“You by no means actually personal a Patek Philippe. You merely take care of it for the following era.”

Possibly BREIT may undertake the same moniker?

“You by no means actually personal shares in BREIT. You merely maintain them lengthy sufficient in your youngsters to money them out for a home within the Hamptons.”

Click on right here to learn extra on Blackstone’s management shakeup.

In different information:

2. One other Marcus mover. Goldman Sachs’ ailing client enterprise simply misplaced one other government with the departure of Doug Villone, who was an MD and ran operations and customer support at Marcus. Extra on Villone’s new function at Barclays.

3. Fintech overseas! We mapped out 27 of essentially the most thrilling European fintechs to look at in 2023, in response to suggestions from greater than a dozen of the highest traders within the area. Take a look at your complete listing right here.

4. Charges go up… once more. Nevertheless it’s not that unhealthy! The Federal Reserve raised rates of interest by 25 foundation factors, and it could possibly be one other nod towards us avoiding a recession altogether. Extra on Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s considering.

5. Cracking down on credit-card late charges. A brand new rule proposal by the Shopper Monetary Safety Bureau would restrict “exorbitant” credit-card late charges. Extra on the proposal that would save People as much as $9 billion a yr.

6. It is now JPMacht. The most important US financial institution by belongings has its eyes set on Europe, particularly Germany, with plans for a brand new digital financial institution, Bloomberg experiences. This is why JPMorgan is betting huge on Deutschland.

7. The whole lot you could know in regards to the man behind the robotic that is about to take over the world. OpenAI’s ChatGPT is the speak of the city. So it is price attending to know the corporate’s CEO, Sam Altman. This is extra on the person behind one of many world’s most-watched startups.

8. Talking of taking up the world… Twitter simply utilized for a collection of licenses that might allow it to course of funds. Extra on Elon Musk’s imaginative and prescient for X, an “every part app” in the same vein to Chinese language tremendous app WeChat.

9. What it takes to land at a Massive 4 accounting agency. Ginnie Carlier, EY Americas vice chair of expertise, shares the qualities she appears to be like for in candidates and how you can present them off throughout interviews. And whereas we’re on the subject of job looking, a senior director at LinkedIn has some suggestions for how one can slide into the DMs of somebody along with your dream job. Click on right here to study extra.

10. We obtained a tour of that resort in Singapore with the loopy infinity pool you all the time see on Instagram. You realize precisely the one I am speaking about. This is a bunch of photographs contained in the Marina Bay Sands, which has suites that may run as excessive as $17,000 per evening.

Curated by Dan DeFrancesco in New York. Suggestions or suggestions? E-mail [email protected], tweet @dandefrancesco, or join on LinkedIn. Edited by Jeffrey Cane (tweet @jeffrey_cane) in New York and Hallam Bullock (tweet @hallam_bullock) in London. 

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