Blackstone secures $30.8 billion for latest global real estate fund

India may receive 5-10% of it, say industry experts

Blackstone has secured $30.4 billion worth of total capital commitments for its latest global real estate fund, called Blackstone Real Estate Partners X, targeting deals across sectors, such as rental housing, hospitality and data centers, it announced on Tuesday.

About 5-10 per cent of this multibillion-dollar fund could come to India, according to industry experts who are aware of Blackstone's operations in the country.

“I feel 5-10 per cent of that money would come to India. It would not invest much in office properties here in India because American corporations are cautious about leasing here due to troubles in their home markets,” said a senior executive at a Singapore-based investment firm, adding that Blackstone may invest in Indian logistics, data centres, and so on.

When contacted, a Blackstone spokesperson did not offer any comments.

Blackstone Real Estate Partners X is 48 per cent bigger than its previous real estate fund which was closed in 2019. Blackstone’s real estate business, which started in 1991, now has $326 billion of investor capital under management.

Blackstone is investing Rs 4,500 crore in developing 5 million sqft warehousing properties in the country under its logistics platform Horizon Industrial Parks.

It has set up Lumina CloudInfra, a data center platform, which will be owned and managed by Blackstone’s Real Estate and Tactical Opportunities funds, media reports said last year, adding the platform is developing two hyper-scale data centres in the country.

Blackstone's Nexus Malls is also gearing up to float a Rs 4,000-crore initial public issue for its real estate investment trust (REIT) in the county. The REIT has 17 operational malls in the country.

"Depending on opportunities, they would draw money from the fund. They do not earmark money for different markets as it depends on opportunities globally," said Shobhit Agarwal, managing director at Anarock Capital.