Blackstone’s $68bn flagship property fund has gone from being one of the world’s biggest buyers of property to a large seller, as it raises liquidity to meet redemptions and invest billions in data centres to feed the artificial intelligence boom.
From the beginning of 2021 to the third quarter of last year, the Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust, or Breit, acquired roughly $60bn of property, including hotels, warehouses and self-storage facilities, according to a Financial Times analysis of Blackstone’s securities filings. The wave of dealmaking included taking four publicly listed real estate investment trusts private.
But since the autumn of last year, Breit has made no large purchases and instead sold over $10bn in assets to crystallise gains on successful investments and raise liquidity.