Blackstone’s inaugural private equity fund targeting Japanese individual investors has raised $1.2bn just four months after launch, on the back of increasing interest in alternative assets in the country, according to a report by Bloomberg.
The report cites data from the Japan Securities Dealers Association as showing that the dollar-denominated Blackstone Private Equity Strategies Investment Trust achieved the milestone by the end of June.
Historically, alternative investments have been less popular in Japan due to their lower liquidity. However, this trend is changing as the Japanese government encourages citizens to invest more of their cash holdings, which are diminishing in value due to inflation in Asia’s second-largest economy.
“Japanese individual investors are increasingly interested in alternative investments and are gaining a deeper understanding of the asset class,” said Kaoru Fujita, a Tokyo-based managing director at Blackstone.
Major financial institutions like Nomura Holdings, Daiwa Securities Group and SMBC Nikko Securities have been actively selling the fund, primarily to affluent individuals. The minimum investment requirement for the fund is $50,000 (JPY7.8m), significantly higher than the typical JPY10,000 for local investment trusts.
Other companies are also entering the market, with SBI Holdings planning to launch a fund in collaboration with the UK’s Man Group in August, with a minimum investment of just JPY100. In February, Canada’s Brookfield Corporation introduced a fund that invests in unlisted real estate investment trusts.
Blackstone ventured into the retail investment market in Japan in 2021. Its other alternative offerings in Japan include a $252m fund targeting unlisted US REITs and a $580m private credit fund providing loans to US companies, according to JSDA figures. These products have been available for over a year but have only one distributor in Japan.
