Blackstone's Schwarzman Collects $568 Million in Dividends, Pay
Blackstone’s Schwarzman collects $568 million in 2019, a 28 percent drop from a year earlier.
(Bloomberg) -- Blackstone Group LP co-founder Steve Schwarzman took home $567.8 million in dividends and compensation in 2018, a 28 percent drop from a year earlier.
The chief executive officer, 72, collected at least $499 million in dividends on his stake in the New York-based private-equity firm, according to a regulatory filing Friday. His pay consisted of $67.4 million in carried interest and $1.7 million of salary, equity and security. In 2017, he got $786.5 million.
Blackstone has benefited from investor demand for alternative assets such as private equity and real estate, attracted by the high returns they have delivered. The firm has about $472 billion under management, making it the largest of its type globally. Its distributable earnings slid to $2.69 billion in 2018, down from a record $3.88 billion a year earlier.
Jon Gray, who was promoted to president and chief operating officer last year, received $145.7 million, of which about 60 percent came from dividends. He also got $46.2 million in carried interest and a $10 million bonus.
Not included in Gray’s compensation are partnership units worth $30 million that he was awarded for his 2018 performance but won’t be issued until later this year. They will vest gradually through July 2024.
Schwarzman, who founded Blackstone in 1985 with Peter G. Peterson and has a $12.7 billion fortune, holds partnership units available only to the firm’s top executives that historically have paid a slightly higher dividend than common shares. Bloomberg’s calculations are based on the $2.15 aggregate dividends paid to holders of common units, because Blackstone didn’t disclose the payouts for partnership shares.
Dividends aren’t categorized as compensation because they’re paid regardless of whether the recipient works at the company.
Schwarzman has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to entities including the New York Public Library and his high school in a Philadelphia suburb. Last year, he gave $350 million to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to help establish a college of computing.
To contact the reporter on this story: Anders Melin in New York at amelin3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Pierre Paulden at ppaulden@bloomberg.net, Steven Crabill
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