Blackstone, the world’s largest manager of alternative assets, announced strong second-quarter financial results on Thursday, with rising income powered by a growing asset base and lucrative bets on artificial intelligence.
The New York firm reported that new money flowing in during the quarter pushed its total assets under management to $1.35 trillion. Distributable earnings — the profit available to shareholders — climbed 26% on a per-share basis, reaching $1.52.
Blackstone shares responded positively, gaining 2.7% in premarket trading, though the stock had still fallen roughly 20% for the year through its most recent close.
Several major transactions helped drive the company’s asset monetization haul to $31.8 billion. Those included selling a stake in three data centers to Digital Realty and offloading a majority interest in power infrastructure firm Sabre Industries to TPG.
After market turbulence slowed deal activity in the first quarter, Blackstone accelerated its pace in the second. The company also benefited from the public listings of advertising technology firm Liftoff Mobile, a data center investment vehicle called Blackstone Digital Infrastructure Trust, and Indian office REIT Bagmane.
The firm has made a major commitment to the artificial intelligence sector, joining fellow investment firm Apollo in a $35 billion financing deal for custom chips intended for use by Anthropic, the company behind Claude Code. Blackstone noted that nine of its ten top-appreciating investments are connected to AI, including a stake in Anthropic and various data center operations. The company had taken data center platform QTS private in a $10 billion deal back in 2021.
CEO Stephen Schwarzman described the company’s strategy as choosing to “lean into the artificial intelligence megatrend.” He added that becoming “a trusted partner at scale to many of the key innovators” had put the firm in a strong position going forward.
Despite the AI enthusiasm, concerns that the technology could disrupt software businesses have weighed on private equity and credit firms that poured money into those companies. This has raised questions about how such firms assign values to their holdings.
Amid this uncertainty, wealthy investors — who account for nearly a quarter of Blackstone’s total assets — have been pulling money from private credit funds. The company’s retail private credit fund, BCRED, raised $1 billion during the quarter, a sharp drop from $1.9 billion the prior quarter and well below the $3.7 billion raised in the same period of 2025.
Net returns from private credit improved slightly to 0.4%, up from flat in the first quarter, though still well short of the 2.2% return recorded a year earlier.
Other funds aimed at wealthy individuals also saw inflows: Blackstone Private Equity Strategies raised $2.4 billion, the infrastructure fund BXINFRA brought in $861 million, and real estate investment trust BREIT attracted $1.2 billion. BREIT had begun exercising the right to limit investor withdrawals back in 2022.
