Blackstone Inc. (BX) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending June 30, 2023

July 20, 2023 9:00 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good day and welcome to the Blackstone Second Quarter 2023 Investor Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions]

At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Weston Tucker, Head of Shareholder Relations. Please go ahead.

Weston Tucker

Thank you, Katie, and good morning, and welcome to Blackstone's second quarter conference call. Joining today are Steve Schwarzman, Chairman and CEO; Jon Gray, President and Chief Operating Officer; and Michael Chae, Chief Financial Officer.

Earlier this morning, we issued a press release and slide presentation, which are available on our website, and we expect to file our 10-Q report in a few weeks. I'd like to remind you that today's call may include forward-looking statements, which are uncertain and outside of the firm's control and may differ from actual results materially. We do not undertake any duty to update these statements.

For a discussion of some of the risks that could affect results, please see the Risk Factors section of our 10-K. We'll also refer to non-GAAP measures, and you'll find reconciliations in the press release on the shareholders page of our website. Also note that nothing on this call constitutes an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to purchase an interest in any Blackstone fund. This audiocast is copyrighted material of Blackstone and may not be duplicated without our consent.

So on results, we reported GAAP net income for the quarter of $1.2 billion. Distributable earnings were also $1.2 billion or $0.93 per common share, and we declared a dividend of $0.79 per share, which will be paid to holders of record as of July 31.

With that, I'll now turn the call over to Steve.

Steve Schwarzman

Thank you, Weston, and good morning. Thank you all for joining the call. Blackstone reached a remarkable milestone in the second quarter. We surpassed $1 trillion of assets under management. The first alternative manager to do so of more than three years ahead of the aspirational road map we presented at our Investor Day in 2018.

This achievement is significant in many ways, including for me personally. I founded Blackstone with my partner, Pete Peterson, in 1985 with $400,000 of startup capital. We sent out 450 personal announcements of our new venture and published a full-page newspaper ad with the expectation that the phone would start ringing off the hook. It was a humbling experience when no one called other than a few people wishing us luck.