(Nov 12): Blackstone Inc’s top private wealth executives held their first-ever gathering in Dubai to court the city’s deep-pocketed investors, as the alternative asset manager seeks to expand its business across the Gulf.
The US firm pitched its range of products, including private credit and infrastructure, to an audience of more than 100 high-net-worth individuals and representatives from platforms that distribute private investments to wealthy clients and family offices at the Waldorf Astoria in the Dubai International Financial Centre.
Speakers at the Wednesday event included Farhad Karim, chief operating officer of Blackstone Private Wealth; Carlos Whitaker, president of BCRED, its flagship private credit fund for individual investors; and Greg Blank, chief executive officer of BXINFRA, its infrastructure vehicle for retail investors.
The gathering also coincided with the opening of Blackstone’s new Dubai outpost — its first dedicated private wealth office outside Zurich.
Blackstone’s push into Dubai, where the financial hub alone is home to family offices controlling more than US$1 trillion (RM4.07 trillion) in assets, is the latest sign of the United Arab Emirates’ continued appeal to financial firms, wealth managers and family offices despite the months-long Iran war.
“The UAE has built an extraordinary position as a global finance and investment hub and is becoming an increasingly important center for wealth management,” Blackstone president and chief operating officer Jon Gray said in an emailed statement.
Global firms including JPMorgan Chase & Co, Barclays Plc and HSBC Holdings Plc have also been expanding their wealth businesses in the Middle East despite the regional war.
“What’s happening in Dubai isn’t cyclical. It’s structural,” Blackstone’s Karim told Bloomberg News. He said money, talent, entrepreneurs and financial institutions are all moving in the same direction, making Dubai “one of the world’s great wealth capitals.”
Private capital firms and alternative asset managers are increasingly turning to wealthy individuals and family offices as institutional fundraising has slowed. Blackstone has been at the forefront of that shift, with its private wealth business managing US$330 billion, nearly a quarter of the firm’s US$1.4 trillion in assets.
The push hasn’t been entirely smooth. Blackstone is navigating pressures hitting many private credit firms as some investors have rushed to redeem their capital on concerns on exposure to software companies and credit quality.
The Gulf has also become a prominent dealmaking destination for Blackstone. Despite the Iran war, the firm has struck several deals in the UAE, partnering with a Dubai firm on an aircraft-leasing venture and committing US$250 million to a payments infrastructure platform in Abu Dhabi. It also joined other global firms in a US$16 billion infrastructure partnership involving Kuwait’s oil-export pipelines, the largest foreign direct investment in the country’s history.
Blackstone is also expanding its Abu Dhabi office, already its largest in the region, to support further dealmaking.
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