Blackstone REIT Fulfills 100% of Repurchase Requests for the First Time Since 2022
Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust Inc. – a publicly registered non-traded real estate investment trust sponsored by private equity giant The Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX) – reported that it had fulfilled 100% of repurchase requests in February.
The company reported that it received $961 million in repurchase requests, which was 26% lower than January 2024 and down 82% from the peak of $5.3 billion requested in January 2023. February’s requests fell below the fund’s redemption policy limit that allows for 2% of its net asset value (NAV) to be redeemed per month, and a total of 5% per quarter.
BREIT, like other perpetual non-traded REITs, offers investors an option for monthly partial liquidity, allowing investors to redeem their shares from the fund each month.
Since November 2022, however, BREIT has been repurchasing shares on a prorated basis as redemption requests have exceeded the 2% limit each month or the 5% limit each quarter. The firm reported that, over the 15 months of proration, more than $15 billion of liquidity was returned to stockholders in “a deliberate and thoughtful way.”
In a letter to investors, the company also stated that it believed there were several reasons for optimism, including declining inflation and interest rates, a significant reduction in new construction in the BREIT’s key sectors, and its concentration in high-growth sectors. BREIT reported that it will continue to “deploy capital into BREIT’s high conviction themes.”
Since inception seven years ago, BREIT has delivered an annualized return net of fees of roughly 11%, more than double the return of publicly traded REITs.