Blackstone Doubles Second Quarter Profits Thanks to Higher Asset Sales

July 22 (Reuters) – Blackstone Group Inc (BX.N), the world’s largest private equity firm, said on Thursday that its second-quarter distributable income had nearly doubled year-over-year thanks to a increased sales of assets in its real estate, private equity, credit and insurance companies.

Distributable income, which represents cash used to pay dividends to shareholders, reached $ 1.1 billion, from $ 548 million a year earlier.

That translated into distributable earnings per share of 82 cents, beating Wall Street analysts’ average estimate of 78 cents, according to data compiled by Refinitiv.

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Blackstone said its capital deployment hit a record $ 23.8 billion in the quarter. He also pledged to invest an additional $ 28.5 billion in deals such as acquiring a controlling stake in medical supplier Medline Industries Inc alongside Carlyle Group Inc (CG.O) and Hellman & Friedman. .

Strong capital markets and rising corporate valuations have allowed Blackstone to cash in a large portion of its investments. Total asset sales reached $ 19.6 billion, including the divestment of $ 2.9 billion of its warehouse and logistics portfolio in Australia.

The buyout firm said its private equity portfolio rose 13.8% in the second quarter, compared to an 8.2% rise in the benchmark S&P 500 stock index during the same period. Opportunistic and core real estate funds gained 9.4% and 5.7% respectively.

Blackstone said its net income under generally accepted accounting principles doubled to $ 1.3 billion, thanks to a sharp increase in investment income.

Its total assets under management reached $ 684 billion, up from $ 648.8 billion in the previous quarter. Unspent capital fell to $ 129.9 billion from $ 148.2 billion three months earlier due to the pace of capital deployments.

Blackstone declared a quarterly dividend of 70 cents per share.

Report by Chibuike Oguh in New York; edited by Jason Neely

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