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Blackstone reported that the trillion-dollar investment firm’s Wall Street deal engine is revving back to life as it sees a pickup in initial public offerings and merger and acquisition transactions.
“We are preparing a number of other companies for public offerings over the coming quarters,” Stephen Schwarzman, Blackstone’s CEO, said during the company’s second-quarter earnings call on Thursday, after pointing to the investment firm’s July IPO of Cirsa, a gambling company in Spain.
Jon Gray, Blackstone’s president, said that the company’s $480 billion credit platform was evaluating 50% more potential IPO transactions than in 2024.
“There’s just a lot of pent-up demand in the system,” Gray said. “And then when we look at our proprietary data, we’ve got the busiest pipeline we’ve had since 2021 of potential IPOs.”
Blackstone reported $1.21 of distributable earnings per share in the second quarter, a 26% increase from the same period a year prior, and $2.30 a share for the first half of the year, a 19% increase year over year. The firm posted $3.7 billion of revenue during the quarter, up 33% from the same period in 2024.
IPO and M&A activity is a key driver of Blackstone’s financial performance, producing much of the fees that produce its revenue. Net realizations, investments that reach a capital event such as a sale or public offering and reap returns for Blackstone investors and fee income for the firm, were up 6% during the quarter to nearly $326 billion.
“More conducive capital markets, if sustained, should lead to the acceleration of realizations for Blackstone over time,” Schwarzman said.
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Michael Chae, Blackstone’s CFO, stated that the firm expected to close the $8.2 billion sale of Resolution Life, an insurance firm in which it owns a 6% stake, in the second half of the year.
Gray and Schwarzman expressed an upbeat outlook on the economy, including that tariff uncertainties brought on by President Trump had given way to trade deals, inflation was muted, and interest rates would fall.
“The environment we see emerging of lower short-term interest rates, less uncertainty, and continued economic growth, combined with a pent-up desire to transact, is the right recipe to reignite M&A and IPO activity for Blackstone,” Gray said.
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