Blackstone has held the final close of the first series of its evergreen institutional US direct lending fund, Blackstone Senior Direct Lending Fund (BXD), with approximately $22bn of investable capital, including expected leverage.
Fundraising exceeded BXD’s original $10bn target and brings Blackstone’s global direct lending platform to over $123bn in assets under management as of the third quarter of this year.
“This capital raise reflects our long-term strength in private credit, our global reach across corporates and sponsor-led transactions, and our ability to add value to the companies with which we partner,” said Brad Marshall, Global Head of Private Credit Strategies at Blackstone Credit & Insurance (“BXCI”). “We believe our scale and breadth of solutions position us extremely well during what we expect to be an active transaction environment with declining rates.”
BXCI deployed or committed $40bn in direct lending through the third quarter, more than double the total for all of 2023. This includes lead roles in some of the largest deals of the year with CoreWeave ($7.5bn), Squarespace ($2.7bn), Fidelis ($2bn), and Davies (£1.5bn), as well as recent proprietary middle-market transactions for Permira’s Acuity Knowledge Partners ($600m), Graham Partners’ Gatekeeper Systems ($550m), and publicly listed Loar ($360m), where BXCI served as the sole lender.