Blackstone (BX) is now nearly four times the size of when it originally filed its IPO in 2007. Most notably, it has expanded its real estate division from a $17.7 billion business when the company went public to one that today manages nearly $100 billion worth of property. Per Business Insider:
“We’re now, we believe, the largest owner of real estate in the world,” Steve Schwarzman, CEO, told Business Insider in an interview at his company’s Park Avenue headquarters in midtown Manhattan.
“We have a performance record that is… pretty much in a league of our own, we’ve compounded [returns of] around 18% after fees. We’ve had almost no losses of any type.”
And real estate is just part of the giant growth Blackstone is witnessing.
Back in August, HousingWire wrote that Finance of America Holdings, a Blackstone portfolio company, revealed that it snatched up several major lenders, a move likely destined to make it one of the nation’s largest nonbank originators, if all goes as planned.
The significant list of acquisitions included Gateway Funding Diversified Mortgage Services, Pinnacle Capital Mortgage and certain assets and operations of PMAC Lending Services. Finance of America Holdings also owns Urban Financial of America.
And this probably won’t be the last thing that Finance of America announces. An internal email, shared privately with HousingWire at the time, revealed that Finance of America president Steve McClellan expects to announce more “exciting plans for the future.”