Blackstone Inc’s first ever private equity fund aimed at wealthy individuals – private investors with more than $5m to invest – has raised $1.3bn despite a delayed launch, according to a report by Bloomberg.
The report cites a regulatory filing made on Monday as revealing the total which makes the Blackstone Private Equity Strategies Fund (BXPE) fund one of the largest of its kind to date.
Like the firm’s institutional PE vehicles, BXPE will invest in private strategies including startups, fund stakes and buyouts.
With institutional money increasingly hard to come by for private equity firms, BXPE is part of a push to expand the $1tn investment giant’s sources of cash, and is in line with similar initiatives at rival firms including KKR & Co and Apollo Global Management.
Blackstone has been planning BXPE for around six years and originally planned to launch the fund by early 2023, but decided to delay its debut as markets turned and investors became increasingly wary about tying up their cash.
BXPE investors, who will pay 1.25% on net asset value and 12.5% of total returns as long as the fund makes at least 5%, can take out up to 3% of the fund’s net asset value each quarter, although they will forgo a fraction of the value of their shares if they cash out before two years.
