Blackstone Plans to Invest $500 Billion in Europe Over 10 Years

Blackstone’s BX CEO, Steve Schwarzman, told Bloomberg that the asset manager is planning to invest up to $500 billion in Europe over the next decade. Blackstone is already one of the largest foreign investors in the U.K. and has invested nearly $100 billion in the country.

The company’s London office currently employs 650 people.

Reason Behind Blackstone’s Interest in Europe

Of late, various investment firms have been showing interest in Europe.

Presently, Europe’s growth prospects look impressive, given President Trump’s actions to reshape global alliances and trade politics.

The European Union, for instance, has been ramping up its defense spending, a sector often overlooked by private investors. Also, Germany has approved historic spending plans.

Schwarzman has said that Europe started to change its approach, “which we think will result in higher growth rates. So this has worked out amazingly well for us.”

Thus, per Schwarzman, Europe represents a “major opportunity” for Blackstone, which oversees assets worth more than $1 trillion.

Our View on Blackstone

BX has a strong global presence, broad diversification and solid organic growth prospects. Though the firm’s segment revenues declined in 2023, the metric witnessed a four-year (2020-2024) compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.6%.

Growth in revenues is expected in the upcoming quarters on the back of the promising performance of the company’s funds and favorable operating environment. Also, the company’s diversified products, revenue mix and superior position in the alternative investments space are likely to support assets under management (AUM) growth. Over the last four years (2020-2024), fee-earning AUM witnessed a CAGR of 15.3% and total AUM saw a CAGR of 16.2%.

Blackstone’s Price Performance & Zacks Rank

Over the past six months, BX shares have lost 24.9% compared with the industry’s decline of 11.2%.

Currently, Blackstone carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).

BX’s Peers Worth a Look

A couple of better-ranked peer stocks are Virtu Financial, Inc. VIRT and Synchrony Financial SYF. Both VIRT and SYF currently carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Estimates for VIRT’s current-year earnings have been revised 7.9% upward in the past 60 days. The company’s shares have gained 8.3% in the past six months.

Estimates for SYF’s current-year earnings have been revised 1.3% north in the past 60 days. The company’s shares have lost 11.3% in the past six months.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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