Blackstone raising more cash for Euro real estate fund

Investment giant reopening $7.5 billion pool to investors due to demand

Jon Gray Steve Schwarzman
From left: Jonathan Gray and Steve Schwarzman

After raising a record $15.8 billion for a global real estate fund, investment giant Blackstone Group is planning to gather more money for a new property pool focused on European assets.

Blackstone raised $7.5 billion last year for its fourth European-focused real estate fund, but is reopening the pool to investors after reaching its target due to overwhelming demand.

The New York-based firm has invested about two-thirds of the fund, known as Blackstone Real Estate Partners Europe IV, with 2014 being the company’s busiest-ever year for property deals in Europe, according to Bloomberg.

Sign Up for the undefined Newsletter

Jonathan Gray, Blackstone’s global head of real estate, indicated this month that the firm is planning more investments in southern Europe even as economic distress across the continent has bottomed. Blackstone’s real estate in Europe there include warehouses, office buildings, apartments and both commercial and residential property loans.

The firm, which had nearly $92 billion in real estate assets under management as of June, also agreed to buy around $2.7 billion in Nordic real estate assets in July – the region’s largest property transaction since 2008.

Blackstone’s $15.8 billion global real estate fund, the largest-ever private fund of its kind, had already committed 20 percent of its capital to projects as of this month. [Bloomberg]Rey Mashayekhi