Blackstone Inc. (BX) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending March 31, 2023

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

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

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

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

Weston Tucker - Head of Shareholder Relations

Great. Thanks, Katie, and good morning and welcome to Blackstone's first 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. 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 certain 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 consent.

On results, we reported GAAP net income for the quarter of $211 million. Distributable earnings were $1.2 billion or $0.97 per common share and we declared a dividend of $0.82 per share, which will be paid to holders of record as of May 1st.

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

Steve Schwarzman - Chairman and CEO

Thanks, Weston, and good morning and thank you for joining our call. First quarter of 2023 represented a turbulent period for markets, tightening financial conditions and growing concerns of a recession.

While the S&P 500 posted gains that were concentrated in just a handful of large tech companies. Meanwhile, the median stock in the US was flat for the quarter was down 35% from recent peak levels. Capital markets activity remains muted. The IPOs and M&A activity down 50% to 60% year-over-year.