Blackstone’s clients asked to pull $4.5bn out of its real estate fund in March.
Withdrawal requests at the $70bn Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust rose by 15% last month. It was the fifth straight month that the firm has limited redemptions.
Nadeem Meghji, head of Blackstone’s real estate business in the Americas, said BREIT was going to be “playing offence” using its $12bn in liquid assets, while competitors scale back or sell.
But the pitch, made to investors on 8 March, failed to convince. Investors asked to redeem $4.5bn from BREIT in March, up from the $3.9bn they sought to withdraw in February. Blackstone paid out just $666mn of those requests because of the withdrawal cap.
