Earnings Labs

Blackstone Inc. (BX)

Q4 2019 Earnings Call· Thu, Jan 30, 2020

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Blackstone Fourth Quarter and Full year 2019 Investor Call. My name is Leslie and I'm your event manager. During the presentation, your lines will remain on listen-only. [Operator Instructions] I'd like to advise all parties that the conference is being recorded for replay purposes.And now I would like to hand you over to Mr. Weston Tucker, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead sir.

Weston Tucker

Analyst

Great. Thanks Leslie and good morning and welcome to Blackstone's fourth quarter conference call. Joining today's call are Steve Schwarzman, Chairman and CEO; Jon Gray, President and Chief Operating Officer; Tony James, Executive Vice Chairman; Michael Chae, Chief Financial Officer; and Joan Solotar, Head of Private Wealth Solutions.Earlier this morning, we issued a press release and slide presentation which are available on our website. We expect to file our 10-K report later next month. I'd like to remind you that today's call may include forward-looking statements which are uncertain and outside of the firm's control and may differ from actual results materially. We do not undertake any duty to update these statements.For a discussion of some of the risks that could affect results, please see the Risk Factors section of our 10-K. We'll also refer to non-GAAP measures and you'll find reconciliations in the press release on the Shareholders page of our website.Also note that nothing on this call constitutes an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to purchase an interest in any Blackstone fund. This audiocast is copyrighted material of Blackstone and may not be duplicated without consent.So, a quick recap of our results. We reported GAAP net income of $978 million for the quarter. Distributable earnings were $914 million or $0.72 per common share and we declared a dividend of $0.61 to be paid to holders of record as of February 10th.So, with that, I'll now turn the call over to Steve.

Steve Schwarzman

Analyst

Good morning and thank you for joining our call. Blackstone reported an excellent set of results for the fourth quarter, capping a landmark year for the firm. Our investors entrusted us with a remarkable $134 billion of capital during the year, that's $134 billion of new money during the year. And we deployed $63 billion around the world on their behalf, both record amounts.We grew our AUM by 21% to a new industry record of $571 billion. In terms of earnings, which Michael will discuss in more detail, we reported 27% growth in both distributable earnings and fee-related earnings for the quarter.Very significantly for shareholders, in 2019, we successfully converted the firm from a partnership to a corporation, making it vastly easier to own our stock. We've been pleased with the market response so far. I should say very pleased with the market response so far and the positive migration in our shareholder base that's underway.By removing the restraints of our former structure and the PTP discount, BX stock is starting to reflect the powerful trajectory of our firm. Meanwhile, the firm continues to evolve and advance as one of the great public companies of the world.With a market cap of $75 billion, Blackstone is now the 86th largest U.S. public company and ranks in the top quartile on key metrics such as long-term revenue and earnings growth, profitability, and dividend yield. We continued to expand our global platform into new areas. And since our IPO in 2007, AUM has grown by six and a half times.We've also become significantly more diverse. We've extended the dominant franchises we've built in the highest returning areas of alternatives such as opportunistic real estate and corporate private equity further along the risk return spectrum into areas such as more stabilized core plus real…

Jon Gray

Analyst · Evercore. Please go ahead. Glenn, you are live in the call

Thank you, Steve, and good morning, everybody. We have consistently outlined a simple vision for Blackstone over the last couple of years, characterized by several key principles. If we continue to deliver strong investment performance, we will attract more capital both in existing and new areas.Secondly, a shift towards more perpetual capital will grow and improve the quality of our earnings. Third, we will emphasize deployment in faster-growing parts of the global economy where we see more opportunity for capital appreciation.Fourth, we will continue to expand our sources of capital to the retail and insurance channels. Fifth, we will maintain a capital-light business relying on our people, track record and brand to grow. And sixth, we will simplify our story for shareholders making the stock easier to understand and own.As we move into the New Year, I wanted to update you on how we're tracking against these priorities. First, starting with investment performance and fundraising. Our performance remains highly differentiated as it has for 30-plus years with 15% net returns from inception in opportunistic real estate and corporate private equity, 14% in secondaries, and 11% in tactical opportunities and credit.These returns have generated a deep reservoir of investor trust and powered the Blackstone innovation machine, allowing us to meaningfully exceed our fundraising objectives. For three years in a row, we've achieved over $100 billion of inflows. And while the fundraising for our largest flagship funds is behind us, we should be approaching $100 billion again this year. Investors want access to Blackstone products more than ever.Secondly, we're seeing faster growth in perpetual capital, which is transforming our asset base and earnings into something much steadier than what we generated historically. In the past our business primarily consisted of episodic drawdown funds and our capital deployment equated to planting the seeds…

Michael Chae

Analyst · Craig Siegenthaler from Credit Suisse

Thanks, Jon, and good morning everyone. Our fourth quarter results represent a very strong conclusion to an outstanding year. Total AUM rose 21% year-over-year or approximately $100 billion to new record levels, the result of $134 billion of gross inflows and $33 billion of market appreciation despite $40 billion of realizations.Inflows continue to be broad-based across the firm, including $57 billion in private equity and $34 billion in real estate both record years for those segments, along with $31 billion in credit and $12 billion in BAAM.As Jon alluded to, despite the successful completion of our flagship so-called super cycle, we expect another very strong year of inflows in 2020. Indeed two-thirds of 2019's inflows or $86 billion were from products outside of the four flagship funds the majority of which were from strategies that continuously raise capital. I'll discuss the fundraising pipeline in a moment.Fee-earning AUM grew 19% to $408 billion of which nearly 1/4 is now perpetual. Fee-related earnings continued on the strong positive trajectory outlined previously, up 23% to a record $1.8 billion for the full year or $1.49 per share. Despite the firm's numerous growth initiatives FRE margin expanded over 200 basis points to 48.4% in 2019 the highest level ever.Distributable earnings for the year rose 7% to $2.9 billion. For the fourth quarter DE rose 27% to $914 million or $0.72 per share underpinned by 27% growth in FRE and a 33% increase in net realizations.In terms of key drivers, the fourth quarter included the benefit of performance revenues crystallizing for both BREIT and BAAM. As a result in real estate, fee-related performance revenues more than tripled year-over-year to $150 million. And in BAAM performance revenues increased fivefold to $109 million, while DE more than doubled to $185 million the result of a healthy 8.2%…

Operator

Operator

Thank you, and thank you everyone. Your question-and-answer session will now begin. [Operator Instructions] Okay. So your first question comes from the line of Glenn Schorr. He is from Evercore. Please go ahead. Glenn, you are live in the call.

Glenn Schorr

Analyst · Evercore. Please go ahead. Glenn, you are live in the call

Thank you. I appreciate it. I guess just looking for an update on two of the business platforms, different questions, but just an update on insurance. You've made some key hires there. There is talk of a lot of risk transfer deals going on in the marketplace. So an update there. And then in the secondary business where your performance is awesome, there's been a ton of money being raised in the market including now Goldman Sachs in the market. Like just your thoughts for the secondaries business going forward? And do you see that same supply of money coming in? Thanks.

Jon Gray

Analyst · Evercore. Please go ahead. Glenn, you are live in the call

Thanks, Glenn. I'll start with the secondary business. Yes, there has been big fundraising in that space including our fundraising. But I think you have to put it in context. Overall, alternatives are now I think a $6 trillion business. And last year about $100 billion transacted, so less than 2% of the market. So it's a market where as investors keep allocating and by the way as you know alternatives are growing 8% to 10% a year, there's still not enough liquidity. So if you're a fund manager and you want to sell interest in a certain sector or older vintage funds, it's hard to do. And so what we're seeing is a market response where new capital is coming in.I think the good news is that the discounts that exist in terms of buying these interests have persisted. And so we still see it as a very favorable place to deploy capital. And in fact, SP has already committed 50% of its latest private equity fund. So even though the business is growing, we still think there's a lot of room here. In terms of insurance, this is a market that has obviously a lot of capital that is under pressure as a result of extremely low global interest rates. There's a need to move out of investment-grade corporate and sovereign debt and to look at things like direct private credit, structured credit and alternatives. We think we're pretty uniquely positioned to do that. We announced as I mentioned the hiring of Gilles and we're looking at a number of situations. So I think this could be a little bit lumpier. But we're spending a lot of time. Tony in particular has been spending a lot of time on this and we're hopeful over time we're going to announce some meaningful things here.

Tony James

Analyst · Evercore. Please go ahead. Glenn, you are live in the call

I might just jump in. Considering we're still putting the building blocks in place, we think getting -- having 60 -- over $60 billion of AUM is a pretty good start. From here, the growth will be a lot like infrastructure or private equity in the sense that we'll have spurts of growth as we close funds and we close on deals. But we remain as enthusiastic as ever I think.

Glenn Schorr

Analyst · Evercore. Please go ahead. Glenn, you are live in the call

Thanks. Appreciate it.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And your next question comes the line of Michael Cyprys from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead Michael, you're live in the call.

Michael Cyprys

Analyst

Great. Thank you. Good morning.

Jon Gray

Analyst · Evercore. Please go ahead. Glenn, you are live in the call

Good morning, Mike.

Michael Cyprys

Analyst

Hey. So just curious thinking about a little bit bigger picture about the industry some might describe the last decade the 2010s as the golden age for private markets just given the supportive market backdrop and significant growth in the asset class. But I guess as we're sitting here today, the industry has $2 trillion in dry powder, you have purchased multiples leveraged, multiple levels that are elevated, debt terms that are looser with covenants. So I'm just curious how you would characterize the last decade for private markets? And looking forward, how do you describe what the 2020s what the 2020s will be like as a decade for the private markets? And how different might this be?

Jon Gray

Analyst · Evercore. Please go ahead. Glenn, you are live in the call

Well Mike, I think we're in the early stages of the maturity of the alternative space. I think big picture as you know in asset management, we're seeing on the liquid side a lot of movement into ETFs and passives because they've outperformed over time active managers. And on the other end of the barbell big movement into alternatives, again because the performance has been really strong, which is the Blackstone story. That is what underpins our success. If -- the question is are we sort of at the end of the runway, just to put numbers on this, I talked about $6 trillion in alternatives. I think the investable universe if you look at institutional, retail and insurance is something like I don't know $170 trillion.So although it's grown a lot as a percentage of assets out there, it's pretty small. And if we are in an environment where interest rates will persist at a low level I think investors will increasingly be looking for trading some liquidity for higher returns, which is what underpins so much of what we do. So we think this is as I said still in the early stages of a maturity that this -- these businesses can continue to grow. And I think what's also important to point out is people still think of this narrowly as private equity or real estate private equity very high-returning strategies, which obviously we continue to be market leaders in.But what it's really about also is the spreading out here of all these different activities we're engaged in, many of which are longer duration and have lower return targets, and it's obviously easier to deploy capital if you're buying more stable assets that you'll hold for a long period of time without those same high targets.So think about that in our credit BDC, or in infrastructure, or in core+ real estate. And we still think we're in early days there. So we have a fair degree of optimism. It doesn't mean there won't be economic cycles along the way, doesn't mean markets won't go down. Of course that will happen. But if you look out 10 years from now, we envision the alternative space being much larger than what you see today.

Michael Cyprys

Analyst

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Craig Siegenthaler from Credit Suisse. You’re live in the call, Craig. Please go ahead.

Craig Siegenthaler

Analyst · Craig Siegenthaler from Credit Suisse

Thanks. Good morning everyone.

Michael Chae

Analyst · Craig Siegenthaler from Credit Suisse

Good morning.

Jon Gray

Analyst · Craig Siegenthaler from Credit Suisse

Good morning.

Craig Siegenthaler

Analyst · Craig Siegenthaler from Credit Suisse

As we look towards the next annual Russell 1000 out in June I was just hoping that you could provide us an update on your thoughts behind making small changes to your corporate governance, which could include moving a small amount in voter rights in the float which would help BX qualify for the index? I know tracking for this index isn't huge from ETFs in the mix funds, it's around to 4%, but the shadow tracking from active managers that are benchmarked to the Russell is much higher.

Jon Gray

Analyst · Craig Siegenthaler from Credit Suisse

So on structure, our structure and long-term approach has really worked for us. It's worked for our limited partners. It's worked for our employees. It's worked for our shareholders. We like what it does in terms of the way we look at the world, how we deploy capital. And so the short answer is we don't have any plans to change our structure.

Craig Siegenthaler

Analyst · Craig Siegenthaler from Credit Suisse

Thank you, Jon.

Operator

Operator

Okay. Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Chris Harris from Wells Fargo. You’re live in the call, Chris. Please go ahead.

Chris Harris

Analyst · Chris Harris from Wells Fargo

Great. Thanks guys. A question on direct lending. A lot of BDCs, if you look at the public markets have not worked out very well. I think quite a few of them are trading below NAV and experiencing credit losses. Any thoughts on why the industry is having so many challenges in what's a pretty benign credit environment? And how Blackstone as you build this business out can really buck this trend?

Jon Gray

Analyst · Chris Harris from Wells Fargo

Well, what I would point to is we have a mortgage REIT Blackstone Mortgage Trust that has performed extraordinarily well now for quite some time. I want to say something like 15% compounded returns close to that maybe it's 13% now for six or seven years. And there we've been incredibly disciplined in being a first mortgage lender and being really thoughtful around credit.As we build this direct lending platform, we're very focused on making this a senior-oriented lending platform. If you look at a lot of the challenges that are out there a lot of it's focused on people stretching for yield, doing things that take on undue credit risk. And we think by staying very focused sort of in our lane, very disciplined in how we finance the business much like Blackstone Mortgage Trust we can deliver for our direct lending customers and for investors.

Michael Chae

Analyst · Chris Harris from Wells Fargo

And I would just add on to that. In addition to our superior risk management in this area, our origination capabilities creating deals our relationships with issuers, sponsors, corporates in this space we think is second to none. And that's both in the U.S. and Europe. We have very large-scale direct lending businesses as you know in both regions.

Jon Gray

Analyst · Chris Harris from Wells Fargo

Okay. Thanks, Chris.

Operator

Operator

Okay. Thank you. So your next question comes from the line of Alex Blostein from Goldman Sachs. You’re live in the call, Alex. Please go ahead.

Alex Blostein

Analyst · Alex Blostein from Goldman Sachs

Great. Thanks. Good morning guys. So I was hoping to dig a little bit more into the perpetual capital and the performance fees that it generates for you guys and understanding the seasonality in the fourth quarter. But it's obviously been important and will continue to be an important growth driver. So maybe spend a couple of minutes there.And what I'm trying to get to I guess is maybe help us frame, how much of the AUM within the perpetual capital segment kind of locked in 2019? What that could look like into 2020? Because I think there's like a three-year kind of seasoning effect to it? So just kind of help us frame the asset base and how meaningful that could be for you guys going forward?

Jon Gray

Analyst · Alex Blostein from Goldman Sachs

I'll just -- one comment I'd make is, there's a range of sort of realizations that occur. So BREIT is an annual realization. Actually our credit BDC, I think is quarterly. Some -- the core+ BPP vehicles are every three years infrastructure is every three years. We have a couple of co-investments that are five years. So there's a range. And BREIT is the fastest-growing piece of this. But I don't know Michael you want to add?

Michael Chae

Analyst · Alex Blostein from Goldman Sachs

No. I think that's a great setup, because it is a mix of those strategies across BREIT BPP or BDC business BXMT infrastructure with different characteristics. But what's happening here, and you really saw it reveal itself in this quarter and this year the fourth quarter and 2019 is in particular the BREIT driver of our business tripling our fee-related performance revenues in the real estate segment year-over-year. And that sort of trajectory is going to continue between the fundraising the deployment and the performance.And again it is scheduled, it's recurring. We know it will happen on a date certain at the end of every year. And so that alongside the other products which will in the case of BPP and in infrastructure layer in fees according to those, sort of, multi-year anniversaries and then the BDC business, which as Jon said has that quarterly cadence to it and is also in ramp mode over time. All those things together are very powerful. And as I pointed out in my remarks perpetual capital is now on basically one-fourth of our fee earning AUM. So -- and growing rapidly as Jon said. So those things together are a very important narrative.

Jon Gray

Analyst · Alex Blostein from Goldman Sachs

And I would just add one additional point which is in BPP it's every three years from when the investor comes in. So it's not the same 3-year period. So as BPP grows, you'll --every quarter there should be different investors different times of the year as they come along. So there's a maturity that's going on here. That business continues to grow. We announced a large deal in the last week in Japan, which will be another I think important piece as we grow our core plus real estate business in Asia as well. And so having more and more of these vehicles that are open on a quarterly basis to raise capital deploy capital and then take incentive fees based on NAV as opposed to sales that really is what we're talking about in terms of perennials.

Operator

Operator

Okay. Thank you. So your next question comes from the line of Bill Katz from Citi. You are live in the call, Bill. Please go ahead.

Bill Katz

Analyst · Bill Katz from Citi. You are live in the call, Bill. Please go ahead

Okay. Thank you very much for taking the questions this morning. Maybe a two-part question if I can slip it in. Just maybe both for Mike perhaps. First question is just thank you for sort of firming the sort of the pathway on FRE. Just sort of wondering if you could update us on your thinking around the related margins to that?And then a bigger picture question for either one of you guys. Just given the significant multiple expansion that Blackstone has enjoyed over the last year post the C-Corp conversion your thoughts on capital return in any way?

Jon Gray

Analyst · Bill Katz from Citi. You are live in the call, Bill. Please go ahead

You go first one. I'll do the second.

Michael Chae

Analyst · Bill Katz from Citi. You are live in the call, Bill. Please go ahead

I'll take the more narrow one. Hey, Bill on margins you heard us say that over long periods of time we sort of average 100 basis points, 200 basis points a year but not always every year. And we continue to see that sort of structural aspect of our business. Obviously in a year like 2019 and a year like 2020 where we're in a more rapid acceleration mode on FRE growth the operating leverage benefit among other things is even more powerful. So we're not going to make a call around margins this year but we feel good about certainly staying on that sort of trajectory.

Jon Gray

Analyst · Bill Katz from Citi. You are live in the call, Bill. Please go ahead

So as it relates to capital return we like our model. As I said on the call we're paying out 100% of our earnings today it's roughly 85% in the context -- in dividends and 15% in share buybacks. We think giving this capital back to shareholders is the right thing to do. And we like the mix at this point Bill of how we're doing it.

Bill Katz

Analyst · Bill Katz from Citi. You are live in the call, Bill. Please go ahead

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you very much. And your next question comes from the line of Gerry O'Hara from Jefferies. You are live in the call, Gerry. Please go ahead.

Gerry O'Hara

Analyst · Gerry O'Hara from Jefferies. You are live in the call, Gerry. Please go ahead

Great. Thanks. Maybe just a little bit on the $100 billion of fundraising that you kind of pointed to for this upcoming year. Clearly one of the flagship funds is in the mix there but perhaps you could, sort of, point to the components of where you see some of the outsized fundraising coming from a product or a strategy standpoint as we look forward the next 12 months? Thank you.

Jon Gray

Analyst · Gerry O'Hara from Jefferies. You are live in the call, Gerry. Please go ahead

So I would say it's a mix. We talked about what -- oh, yes. I would say it's a mix in our core plus real estate area which includes obviously as we've mentioned BREIT BPP. It's continued growth in direct lending. We talked about raising our next vintage of both corporate and real estate mez those are both should be sizable funds. It's some of these new initiatives like growth equity impact Michael touched on all of these things. But it's just the breadth and depth of the platform continues to expand. And that's why as opposed to in the past where you could point to one or two things very large flagships today there are just multiple areas we're raising capital for many of which are now open full year round.

Michael Chae

Analyst · Gerry O'Hara from Jefferies. You are live in the call, Gerry. Please go ahead

Thanks, Gerry.

Operator

Operator

Okay. Thank you. So your next question comes from Ken Worthington from JPMorgan. You are live in the call, Ken. Please go ahead.

Ken Worthington

Analyst · JPMorgan. You are live in the call, Ken. Please go ahead

Hi. Good morning. You've given us a bunch of outlook. It was very helpful. And I was hoping you could complete the picture with maybe some colors on the realization outlook for this year for private equity and real estate. So if market conditions remained similar to where they are today maybe how does the seasoning of investments what does that suggest for this year for your pipeline versus maybe what you've experienced in 2019?

Michael Chae

Analyst · JPMorgan. You are live in the call, Ken. Please go ahead

Yes, Ken I'd, sort of, refer back to my comments in my remarks that as always it's early in the year by definition. We don't give much by way of granular sort of guidance certainly. But we entered the year with, as I said, a promising pipeline across both those businesses.And particularly, some pretty chunky projects we're working on. And we'll see how they play out in the course of the year. So our teams are working hard on all those fronts. And we do have assets in companies in position in conducive markets for potential events.And then, obviously, in terms of the big picture, you're asking about 2020, but longer term, as we talked about the sort of the net accrued performance revenue receivable position highest in over four years, where we are on invested performance eligible AUM in the ground, $250 billion, all those are basically mathematical indicators of the kind of the long-term trajectory for monetization potential.

Ken Worthington

Analyst · JPMorgan. You are live in the call, Ken. Please go ahead

Okay. Thanks. Worth a try. I appreciate it.

Michael Chae

Analyst · JPMorgan. You are live in the call, Ken. Please go ahead

Thanks, Ken.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Mike Carrier from Bank of America. You're live in the call, Mike. Please go ahead.

Mike Carrier

Analyst · Mike Carrier from Bank of America. You're live in the call, Mike. Please go ahead

Hi. Good morning and thanks for taking the question. You've had great success in the retail channel. I think, you said $26 billion in 2019. Can you just give us an update on that opportunity, maybe, in terms of platforms in the U.S. and even outside the U.S. that you have relationships with, maybe, the types of products that are gaining traction in addition to BREIT? And then, any new initiatives in the pipeline?

Joan Solotar

Analyst · Mike Carrier from Bank of America. You're live in the call, Mike. Please go ahead

Sure. So, as we've mentioned in the past, there are three ways that we're building that out. One is to deepen and broaden the relationships in the channels that we're in and that's a very real opportunity. Second is, grow the distributors and that's both domestically and also regionally. And third is new product. And I would say, all of those are happening in earnest.The penetration remains incredibly low. And just as Jon alluded to on the institutional side, if you think about individuals in a low interest rate environment where stock markets are pretty high, there's a real desire to reallocate to alternatives. So I would say, the current product set, as we talked about the perpetuals that are out there, those continue to gain traction.With advisers we're already working with, as well as new advisers, there's been a lot of growth on that internationally, very attractive. And then, without going into detail, there is, what we believe, will be a category killing product that we plan to launch by the end of this year. And that will be a global launch. And then, we have a few other things that are in the lab as well. So I still think it's quite early days.

Jon Gray

Analyst · Mike Carrier from Bank of America. You're live in the call, Mike. Please go ahead

So, I would just add to Joan's comments by saying, the retail channel is where you really see the power of our brand, that our ability to sell these products across, not just the United States, but the world, is very, very powerful. And so, as we create things that work for these markets and we spend a lot of time trying to develop them, we think, we have a receptive audience.And we're going to be disciplined. Joan is talking about something that's a potential. These things always take time to get done. But when we deliver something, as we've done in BREIT, and we think we can do it with other products, we think the market is very large for the kind of things we do.

Mike Carrier

Analyst · Mike Carrier from Bank of America. You're live in the call, Mike. Please go ahead

Right. Thanks a lot.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Devin Ryan from JMP Securities. You're live in the call, Devin. Please go ahead.

Devin Ryan

Analyst · Devin Ryan from JMP Securities. You're live in the call, Devin. Please go ahead

Thanks. Good morning. And it's JMP Securities. I appreciate the question and most of have been asked and answered. But just a question on the infrastructure opportunity, $8 billion of inflows last year $2.5 billion deployed, almost $14 billion committed. It feels like its maybe a little bit quieter there, given all the other irons in the fire, but I'm just curious if we can get an update on the trajectory of the strategy and just kind of momentum and the opportunities there?

Jon Gray

Analyst · Devin Ryan from JMP Securities. You're live in the call, Devin. Please go ahead

Sure. As I said earlier, this is a space we have a lot of enthusiasm for. We've deployed about 20% at this point of the fund. It's a little bit lumpier, just because of the nature of the assets you're buying, more concentrated. We feel good about the pace. I would tell you, our pipeline actually looks robust today. And I wouldn't be surprised in the first half of the year, if we announced a number of transactions.It's, obviously, competitive in a low interest rate environment. Lots of institutions are looking at infrastructure, but we think our ability to source big opportunities to deal with public market situations, as we did with Tallgrass, our ability to intervene in assets. And I think that's really important for us as a firm, to really add value that will enable us to deploy the capital. And this is a business, I would expect, overtime, that would be much, much larger than $14 billion.

Devin Ryan

Analyst · Devin Ryan from JMP Securities. You're live in the call, Devin. Please go ahead

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Okay. Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Brian Bedell from Deutsche Bank. You're live in the call, Brian. Please go ahead.

Brian Bedell

Analyst · Brian Bedell from Deutsche Bank. You're live in the call, Brian. Please go ahead

Great. Thanks. Good morning. Maybe just switching gears a little bit to deployment. Jon, maybe, if you want to just characterize, I mean, a couple of thoughts there. Obviously, the dry powder continues to build up, up over a-third year-on-year. Deployment level is definitely healthy. But maybe if you can just talk about what the plan – the longer-term plan is for deployment given your very robust fundraising?Are you concerned that you're going to have too much dry powder hanging around? And as you look at the valuations, where do you find challenges and where you find more opportunities that you think can keep those deployment levels healthy and returning – high returning over the long term?

Jon Gray

Analyst · Brian Bedell from Deutsche Bank. You're live in the call, Brian. Please go ahead

That is obviously a very timely question. I was at a pension fund yesterday. I was asked about this and I talked about it being a challenging time. I would just reiterate a few of the things I said earlier. First is because of the expansion of the platform, we just have many more places to deploy capital. And not all of them are super high-return strategies. So the ability to do infrastructure and direct lending and core plus real estate deals and do them around the world is very helpful.I talked about the sale leasebacks in Las Vegas. Those are very innovative transactions done by the real estate team that we would not have done previously without these vehicles.We talked about a bladder cancer drug that is very promising that our life sciences team deployed $400 million into. Again, the expansion of the platform there allows you to invest in a sector that has I think pretty favorable dynamics given limited competition.I'd also say that for us scale is still our calling card. Steve talked about GLP, which was a $20 billion transaction. We did the Merlin transaction in the theme park area a $9 billion transaction again in a newer vehicle core private equity. So big deals. There's still not as much competition.Our ability to intervene, I would point out that we bought Hilton in 2007, obviously not ideal timing. And yet because we brought in a terrific management team, worked closely with them, the company succeeded and thrived. We ended up making $14 billion for our investors. And so there are opportunities even in a challenging market and I would not compare this to the excesses of 2006, 2007.And then specifically what I'd say is there are places in the world where we think value looks better.…

Brian Bedell

Analyst · Brian Bedell from Deutsche Bank. You're live in the call, Brian. Please go ahead

It’s great perspective. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And your final question comes from Chris Shutler from William Blair. You're live into the call. Chris, please go ahead.

Chris Shutler

Analyst · William Blair. You're live into the call. Chris, please go ahead

Hi, guys. Thanks. Big picture question. Just given the firm's tremendous growth in recent years, I'm wondering if you can talk about the process for approving transactions. And how that's evolved just given the significant jump in deployment?I guess ultimately, I'm trying to understand how from a management standpoint you're monitoring quality versus a few years ago just given the increase in the throughput? Thanks.

Jon Gray

Analyst · William Blair. You're live into the call. Chris, please go ahead

I love that question. That is what our business is all about. Fundraising is obviously important. But it's all about investment performance. And we talk about it. We had our partners meeting this week. We talked about it at length. We talk about it all the time which is maintaining our discipline.The most important thing is that we run a centralized investment process. What we've done is made Mondays a lot busier at Blackstone, in terms of the number of global investment committees.We do not -- we have folks on the ground doing different activities all around the world. But we still allocate capital centrally. And so it means the, number of memos, some of us are reading on a weekend are quite substantial.But we think that is very important. And we can never let go of that. And so, we are spending more time. We're also populating more of our people from different areas across the investment committees. We're trying to make sure we have as much connective tissue as possible.And so, it doesn't matter if its life sciences or growth equity, whatever new part of the firm we create it all gets back sort of connected back into the mother ship. And then, we have the same process of Heads Up Committee memos, pre-IC Committee memos, Review Committee, Investment Committee memos all going through multiple layers in each group, so that we try to reduce the number of defects.It doesn't mean they'll never be mistakes. But it greatly reduces the number. It's the reason why the firm has been so successful for so long. It's something that Steve has preached since the beginning. And we're sticking with this formula.So as we grow, we will continue to have a very, very disciplined and focused investment committee process. And the final thing I'd say is the one thing today that worries us the most. And obviously there are political issues, interest rates, all sorts of things. The big thing is the disruption that's happening in almost every industry.How it's impacting these businesses as technology changes. And that I can tell you it doesn't matter if it's an infrastructure deal or a credit deal, real estate private equity doesn't matter. That is the number one focus when we look at the risk and the downside of new investments.

Chris Shutler

Analyst · William Blair. You're live into the call. Chris, please go ahead

Okay, thanks, Jon.

Operator

Operator

Okay. Thank you. And I'd like to hand you back to Weston Tucker for final remarks. Thank you, sir.

Weston Tucker

Analyst

Great, thanks everyone for joining us this morning. And look forward to following up after the call.

Operator

Operator

Thank you everyone. That concludes your conference call for today. You may now disconnect. Thank you for joining. And enjoy the rest of your day.