Blackstone tops private equity real estate ranking

The Blackstone Group is the largest private equity real estate firm in the world, according to a proprietary ranking of private equity real estate firms unveiled for the first time today by sister magazine Private Equity Real Estate.

Stephen Schwarzman: almost $20bn

The US firm raised almost $20 billion (€13 billion) during the five years to April 2008, including the largest private equity-style real estate fund in the world to date,  Blackstone Real Estate Partners VI, which officially closed on $10.9 billion last month.

Morgan Stanley Real Estate was second, having raised $16.8 billion, since January 1, 2003. Together, the two firms have raised more than $36 billion in capital.

Rounding out the PERE 30 top five are Tishman Speyer, which raised $11.4 billion, Goldman Sachs Real Estate Principal Investment Area, which raised $11.2 billion and Colony Capital, which raised almost $11 billion over the five year period.

The complete list of firms in the PERE 30 can be found here.

This is the first ranking ever of private equity-style real estate funds using an like for like methodology. The PERE 30 follows on the success of a similar ranking called the PEI 50, unveiled by PEO's sister publication, Private Equity International (PEI), which ranks private equity firms by size.  Click here to view the PEI 50.

The PERE 30 ranks firms according to the amount of capital raised in dedicated private equity real estate funds over a roughly five-year time period. These investment programs include opportunistic and value-added strategies, but exclude core, core-plus, infrastructure and debt funds.

Zoe Hughes, associate editor of PERE magazine, said: “With real estate growing rapidly as an institutional asset class, these 30 firms are primed to continue growing at a tremendous rate and influencing real estate markets around the world.”