Blackstone’s $68bn flagship property fund has become a net seller, as it raises liquidity to meet redemptions and invest billions in data centres.
Blackstone has committed to spend more than $8bn to build new data centres for several large technology companies, according to sources.
From the beginning of 2021 to the third quarter of last year, the Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust acquired roughly $60bn of property, including hotels, warehouses, self-storage facilities and four publicly-listed REITs.
But since the autumn of last year, BREIT has made no large purchases and instead sold more than $10bn of assets.
The sales were at 4% above the values for which BREIT holds the properties on its balance sheet and created about $2.5bn in investment gains. That has helped BREIT return more than $8bn to investors since November of last year, when the fund limited withdrawals amid a wave of requests among investors to pull cash.
