Blackstone Plans Recruitment Drive to Target World’s Rich
Blackstone Plans Recruitment Drive to Target World’s Rich
(Bloomberg) -- Blackstone Inc. is ramping up efforts to target wealthy individuals worldwide as it increasingly looks to boost allocations to its funds by wealth managers, private banks and family offices.
The New York-based company has 160 or so employees in its team focused on wealthy individuals and plans to “virtually double” that figure over the next few years, according to Blackstone’s global head of private wealth solutions Joan Solotar.
“We continue to grow rapidly,” Solotar said at a media event in London on Tuesday.
Blackstone and rival alternative investment firms are looking at high-net-worth clients as a pool of untapped capital for their private equity, real estate and credit funds. Blackstone was an early proponent and now plans to build up its presence in Switzerland and France before expanding elsewhere in Europe. Individual investors accounted for about 20% of Blackstone’s record $731 billion assets under management as of Sept. 30, according to Solotar.
“There’s certainly a large pocket of wealth in Germany, as well as in northern Italy,” said Blackstone’s head of private wealth solutions for Europe Rashmi Madan.
Low interest rates and lofty public equity markets are prompting investors worldwide to turn to alternative asset managers as they search for returns. KKR & Co. is expanding its own private wealth team and had about 30 individuals worldwide around the end of September.
Blackstone set up its private wealth team a decade ago to target rich individuals who previously couldn’t have accessed the company’s products. The unit has also built out its Asia business, and Solotar is confident her team will hit its target of raising $250 billion by 2027.
Blackstone’s shares rose 1.7% to $141.87 at 10:57 a.m. on Tuesday in New York. They’ve more than doubled in price this year.
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