Cuộc họp công bố kết quả kinh doanh Quý 3/2026 của Blackstone (BX): AUM đạt 1,4 nghìn tỷ USD

Blackstone (NYSE: BX) đã báo cáo kết quả kinh doanh quý 3/2026 khả quan bất chấp mặt bằng lãi suất cao hơn, sự bất ổn địa chính trị và hoạt động giao dịch sụt giảm. Mức tăng trưởng lợi nhuận từ phí, mảng quản lý tài sản cá nhân, bảo hiểm và hạ tầng đã giúp bù đắp cho doanh thu hiện thực hóa thấp hơn và áp lực ở mảng bất động sản cơ hội.

Những điểm chính

• Thu nhập ròng theo GAAP đạt 1,3 tỷ USD, trong khi lợi nhuận có thể phân phối đạt 1,7 tỷ USD, tương đương 1,32 USD trên mỗi cổ phiếu phổ thông. Blackstone đã tuyên bố chi trả cổ tức ở mức 1,12 USD mỗi cổ phiếu.
• Tổng tài sản do công ty quản lý tăng 10% so với cùng kỳ năm ngoái lên khoảng 1,4 nghìn tỷ USD. Dòng vốn vào trong quý 3 đạt 63 tỷ USD, nâng tổng dòng vốn vào trong 12 tháng gần nhất lên trên 270 tỷ USD, mức cao nhất trong 4 năm.
• Lợi nhuận từ phí tăng 6% so với cùng kỳ năm ngoái lên 1,6 tỷ USD, nhờ phí quản lý cơ bản đạt mức kỷ lục 2,0 tỷ USD và doanh thu hiệu suất từ phí tăng 19%.
• AUM mảng quản lý tài sản cá nhân tăng 15% lên mức kỷ lục 330 tỷ USD, trong khi AUM mảng bảo hiểm tăng 14% lên hơn 300 tỷ USD. AUM mảng hạ tầng mở rộng 40% lên 97 tỷ USD.
• Doanh thu hiện thực hóa ròng giảm 20% so với quý trước, nhưng ban quản lý dự kiến sẽ tăng đáng kể trong quý 4, nhờ các thương vụ thoái vốn cổ phần tư nhân đã ký hợp đồng và việc chốt doanh thu hiệu suất cuối năm.
• Ban quản lý dự kiến phí quản lý cơ bản cả năm 2027 sẽ tăng trưởng ở mức hai chữ số thấp so với cùng kỳ năm ngoái, nhờ sự đóng góp từ các quỹ giải ngân mới, các chiến lược vĩnh viễn, bảo hiểm tín dụng và BXMA.

Dữ liệu tài chính cốt lõi

Trong 9 tháng đầu năm 2026, tổng doanh thu từ phí và lợi nhuận liên quan đến phí mỗi chỉ số đều tăng 17% so với cùng kỳ năm trước. Doanh thu hiệu suất đã thực hiện và lợi nhuận có thể phân phối đều tăng 12%.

Kết quả hoạt động và kinh doanh

Tài sản tư nhân và các chiến lược vĩnh viễn

AUM mảng tài sản tư nhân đạt mức kỷ lục 330 tỷ USD, tăng 15% so với cùng kỳ năm trước, với gần 9 tỷ USD doanh số theo quý.

BXPE đạt doanh số theo quý kỷ lục là 2,9 tỷ USD và đạt 29 tỷ USD giá trị tài sản ròng (NAV) trong chưa đầy ba năm. Ban lãnh đạo báo cáo tỷ suất sinh lời ròng quy năm 18% kể từ khi thành lập.

BREIT tăng 9% so với cùng kỳ năm trước lên 58 tỷ USD và ghi nhận dòng vốn ròng thông thường mạnh nhất trong bốn năm. Loại cổ phiếu lớn nhất đạt lợi nhuận ròng khoảng 11% trong 12 tháng qua, với 21 tháng liên tiếp đạt lợi nhuận dương.

BXINFRA ghi nhận doanh số theo quý kỷ lục đạt 1,1 tỷ USD, đưa NAV vượt mức 7 tỷ USD. Loại cổ phiếu lớn nhất của quỹ này đạt tỷ suất lợi nhuận ròng quy năm 17%.

BCRED ghi nhận tổng doanh số bán hàng đạt gần 750 triệu USD. Yêu cầu mua lại cổ phần tương đương 10% NAV, vượt giới hạn 5% hàng quý. Blackstone đã đáp ứng khoảng một nửa tổng số yêu cầu, dẫn đến dòng vốn rút ròng 1,4 tỷ USD.

Bảo hiểm và tín dụng tư nhân

AUM mảng bảo hiểm tăng 14% lên hơn 300 tỷ USD. Nền tảng tín dụng tư nhân cấp đầu tư tăng trưởng 24% lên gần 150 tỷ USD, chủ yếu nhờ nguồn vốn bảo hiểm và sự tham gia ngày càng tăng từ các nhà đầu tư hưu trí và quỹ đầu tư chủ quyền.

AUM mảng cho vay trực tiếp tăng 10% lên gần 170 tỷ USD, bất chấp dòng vốn vào BCRED trầm lắng. Blackstone cho biết dòng vốn từ các nhà đầu tư tổ chức vẫn mạnh mẽ, mặc dù biến động thị trường đã làm chậm hoạt động giao dịch và việc giải ngân cho vay trực tiếp trong quý.

Các chiến lược tín dụng tư nhân dưới cấp đầu tư của công ty đạt tỷ suất lợi nhuận gộp 2,6% trong quý 3 và 7% trong 12 tháng qua. Ban quản lý cho biết hiệu quả tín dụng cơ sở vẫn ổn định trên hầu hết các khoản nắm giữ.

Hạ tầng, AI và năng lượng

AUM mảng hạ tầng chuyên biệt tăng 40% lên 97 tỷ USD. Nền tảng hạ tầng đạt mức tăng trưởng 6,4% trong quý 3 và 29% trong 12 tháng qua, so với mức 4% của Chỉ số Hạ tầng Toàn cầu (Global Infrastructure Index) được trích dẫn.

Blackstone tiếp tục nhấn mạnh vào cơ sở hạ tầng vật lý liên quan đến AI, bao gồm trung tâm dữ liệu, phát điện, truyền tải, lưu trữ và thiết bị. Ban quản lý cho biết khoảng 7% trong tổng số 1,4 nghìn tỷ USD tài sản của công ty liên quan đến hạ tầng AI thông qua cả tài trợ nợ và vốn cổ phần.

Công ty cho biết phần lớn vị thế đầu tư vào trung tâm dữ liệu của mình được hỗ trợ bởi các hợp đồng ban đầu có thời hạn 15 đến 20 năm. Khoảng 96% đối tác đạt cấp đầu tư, với giá trị vốn hóa thị trường trung bình là 2,5 nghìn tỷ USD, theo ban quản lý.

Vốn cổ phần tư nhân và BXMA

Các quỹ vốn cổ phần tư nhân doanh nghiệp tăng 2,8% trong quý 3 và 15% trong 12 tháng qua, dẫn dắt trong quý bởi các khoản nắm giữ mảng năng lượng và điện hóa. Các công ty trong danh mục đầu tư tiếp tục báo cáo tăng trưởng doanh thu ở mức hai chữ số thấp và biên lợi nhuận duy trì ổn định.

AUM của BXMA tăng 22% lên 114 tỷ USD, với dòng vốn vào ròng tự nhiên đạt mức kỷ lục. Danh mục tổng hợp lợi nhuận tuyệt đối của công ty ghi nhận mức lợi nhuận gộp 0,5% trong quý 3 và 13% trong 12 tháng qua. Ban lãnh đạo cho biết BXMA hiện đã đạt 26 quý liên tiếp ghi nhận kết quả dương đối với chiến lược lớn nhất của mình.

Blackstone cũng đã huy động được hơn 16 tỷ USD cho quỹ đầu tư thứ cấp chủ lực thuộc mảng vốn cổ phần tư nhân mới hướng tới mục tiêu tối thiểu 22 tỷ USD. Quỹ chuyển dịch năng lượng vốn cổ phần tư nhân thứ năm của hãng đã đạt mức trần huy động 8,7 tỷ USD sau khi kết thúc quý.

Bất động sản

Lãi suất cơ bản cao hơn đã khiến Blackstone tăng tỷ lệ vốn hóa trên toàn bộ danh mục bất động sản nắm giữ. Các quỹ Core-plus tăng giá trị 1,6% trong quý 3, trong khi các quỹ BREP cơ hội giảm 3,2%.

Ban lãnh đạo nhấn mạnh xu hướng hoạt động khả quan hơn trong mảng trung tâm dữ liệu và logistics. Blackstone dự kiến hoạt động cho thuê trung tâm dữ liệu trên toàn bộ nền tảng toàn cầu của hãng sẽ tăng gấp ba lần trong năm nay, trong khi các tài sản logistics tại Mỹ ghi nhận hoạt động cho thuê tăng 45% trong quý.

Trung tâm dữ liệu và logistics chiếm 54% danh mục bất động sản toàn cầu. Nếu tính cả khách sạn, ba danh mục này chiếm hơn 60% tỷ trọng đầu tư bất động sản. Mặc dù vậy, ban lãnh đạo thừa nhận áp lực tiếp tục đè nặng lên các tài sản có tốc độ tăng trưởng chậm hơn, bao gồm nhà ở nhiều gia đình tại Mỹ và một số bất động sản ở châu Âu.

Định hướng của ban lãnh đạo

Blackstone dự kiến mức tăng trưởng mạnh so với quý trước về doanh thu hiện thực hóa ròng trong quý 4/2026. Lợi nhuận hiện thực hóa từ thưởng hiệu suất (carry) đã ký hợp đồng và dự kiến hoàn tất trong quý được dự báo sẽ vượt tổng mức hiện thực hóa ròng trong quý 3 của công ty. Các khoản đóng góp bổ sung dự kiến sẽ đến từ việc ghi nhận doanh thu thưởng hiệu suất hàng năm tại BXMA và một số chiến lược tín dụng.

Đối với năm 2027, ban lãnh đạo dự kiến phí quản lý cơ bản cả năm sẽ tăng trưởng ở mức hai chữ số thấp so với năm 2026. Các động lực chính được xác định bao gồm:

• Phí thu cả năm từ các quỹ gọi vốn (drawdown funds) thuộc mảng vốn cổ phần tư nhân mới kích hoạt;
• Sự tăng trưởng tiếp tục ở các chiến lược vĩnh viễn (perpetual strategies), bao gồm cơ sở hạ tầng và vốn cổ phần tư nhân;
• Mở rộng trong mảng bảo hiểm tín dụng và tài trợ dựa trên tài sản (asset-based finance);
• Đà tăng trưởng tiếp tục tại BXMA;
• Sự ổn định dần của dòng vốn bất động sản và tín dụng bán lẻ.

Phí quản lý cơ bản mảng bất động sản dự kiến sẽ về cơ bản ổn định cho đến cuối năm và sang năm 2027. Ban lãnh đạo cho biết thời điểm ổn định của mảng bất động sản và phân khúc BDC vẫn là một biến số.

Rủi ro và các mảng cần theo dõi

Blackstone mô tả môi trường hoạt động là đầy thách thức do lợi suất trái phiếu toàn cầu cao hơn, các xung đột địa chính trị, lo ngại về lạm phát, giá dầu ở mức cao và sự không chắc chắn xung quanh cuộc bầu cử giữa kỳ tại Mỹ.

Cơ sở hạ tầng AI tiếp tục là nguồn phân bổ vốn và mang lại lợi nhuận chính, nhưng ban lãnh đạo thừa nhận các rủi ro đến từ chi phí tài trợ vốn cao hơn, việc phê duyệt dự án, hạn chế về nguồn điện và thiết bị, thay đổi công nghệ cùng sự tập trung của các nhà đầu tư. Blackstone cho biết các biện pháp bảo vệ chính của hãng là hợp đồng dài hạn, nguồn tài trợ vốn có bảo đảm, đối tác đạt xếp hạng đầu tư (investment-grade) và tập trung vào cơ sở hạ tầng vật lý thay vì phát triển mang tính đầu cơ.

Trong mảng bất động sản, lãi suất cao hơn tiếp tục tạo áp lực lên định giá và các bất động sản có tốc độ tăng trưởng chậm hơn. Mặc dù xu hướng cho thuê và nguồn cung đã cải thiện ở một số lĩnh vực, ban lãnh đạo cảnh báo rằng các khoản đầu tư vốn cổ phần và tài trợ nợ hiện hữu có thể phải chịu áp lực mới.

Yêu cầu mua lại cổ phần ở mức cao của BCRED tiếp tục là một mảng khác cần theo dõi. Danh mục các thương vụ cho vay trực tiếp tiềm năng cũng vẫn bị hạn chế tại thời điểm diễn ra cuộc họp vì biến động thị trường đã làm chậm hoạt động giao dịch.

Điểm nhấn phần Hỏi & Đáp với chuyên gia phân tích

• Tài trợ vốn và định giá AI: Ban lãnh đạo cho biết thị trường vốn thắt chặt hơn có thể ảnh hưởng nhẹ đến định giá tài sản đã ổn định, nhưng có thể cải thiện tỷ suất lợi nhuận triển vọng của các dự án mới. Blackstone thường đảm bảo nguồn tài trợ vốn cùng với các cam kết dự án lớn và tránh giải ngân phần lớn vốn trước khi có được các hợp đồng dài hạn.
• Nhu cầu vốn cho AI: Công ty nhận thấy cơ hội trong các mảng tín dụng xếp hạng đầu tư, tài trợ vốn thứ cấp (junior financing), vốn cổ phần cơ hội, năng lượng và trung tâm dữ liệu. Ban lãnh đạo cho biết các quỹ chuyên dụng có thể được sử dụng trong một số mảng, bao gồm khả năng tài trợ vốn cho mảng chip, trong khi nhiều khoản đầu tư vẫn sẽ nằm trong các quỹ hỗn hợp đa dạng.
• Tăng trưởng mảng quản lý tài sản tư nhân: Blackstone cho biết đà tăng trưởng chủ yếu nhờ vào hiệu quả đầu tư, sức mạnh thương hiệu, mạng lưới phân phối toàn cầu và mức độ thâm nhập thị trường tư nhân còn thấp của các nhà đầu tư cá nhân. Các sản phẩm đa tài sản mới dự kiến sẽ cần thời gian và hoạt động đào tạo nhà đầu tư trước khi đạt quy mô lớn.
• Mở rộng mảng bảo hiểm: Ban lãnh đạo kỳ vọng tiếp tục tăng trưởng do Blackstone vận hành một nền tảng bảo hiểm độc lập, không phụ thuộc (noncaptive), có khả năng khởi tạo các giao dịch đầu tư tư nhân đạt xếp hạng đầu tư quy mô lớn. Mức phí trung bình cho các ủy thác bảo hiểm được mô tả là khoảng 40 đến 50 điểm cơ bản, có sự biến động tùy thuộc vào khách hàng và chiến lược.
• Điều kiện cho vay trực tiếp: Lãi suất cơ bản cao hơn đã cải thiện tỷ suất lợi nhuận tổng thể, nhưng chênh lệch lãi suất (spreads) vẫn tương đối ổn định. Ban lãnh đạo cho biết sự cạnh tranh trong các giao dịch mới ở mức cân bằng và hiệu quả tín dụng vẫn lành mạnh trên hầu hết danh mục đầu tư.
• Sự phục hồi của mảng bất động sản:Ban lãnh đạo đã chỉ ra rằng nhu cầu tăng tốc, nguồn cung mới sụt giảm mạnh và thị trường nợ lành mạnh hơn là các yếu tố hỗ trợ, đồng thời thừa nhận rằng lãi suất cao hơn tiếp tục gây áp lực lên các tài sản có mức tăng trưởng thấp hơn.

Toàn văn biên bản cuộc họp công bố kết quả kinh doanh

Toàn văn cuộc gọi công bố kết quả kinh doanh

Phần trình bày của ban lãnh đạo

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Blackstone Third Quarter 2026 Investor Call. Today's call is being recorded. [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

Great. Thanks, Katie, and good morning, and welcome to Blackstone's third quarter conference call.

Joining me today are Steve Schwarzman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Jon Gray, President and Chief Operating Officer; and Michael Chae, Vice Chairman and 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 in a few weeks.

We'd like to remind you that today's call may include forward-looking statements, which are uncertain and may differ from actual results materially. We do not undertake any duty to update these statements. For a discussion of some of the factors 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 audio cast is copyrighted material of Blackstone and may not be duplicated without consent.

On results, we reported GAAP net income for the quarter of $1.3 billion. Distributable earnings were $1.7 billion or $1.32 per common share, and we declared a dividend of $1.12 per share, which will be paid to holders of record as of November 2.

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

Stephen Schwarzman

Good morning, and thank you for joining our call. Third quarter of 2026 represented a highly complex environment, characterized by an historic increase in bond yields globally, including U.S. Treasury yields hitting the highest level in decades, alongside continued geopolitical turbulence, wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, inflation concerns, high oil prices, sovereign debt worries, uncertainty over the U.S. midterm elections and other challenges. These challenges have continued post quarter end. On the one hand, the artificial intelligence revolution is powering robust growth in many areas, while on the other hand, a higher cost of capital has negatively impacted investor sentiment and transaction activity and triggered significant volatility in the markets.

The S&P 500 Index rose slightly in the third quarter with gains concentrated in the largest tech companies and the energy sector, although most individual stocks declined, and the median stock is now 15% below its recent high. Against this challenging backdrop, Blackstone reported strong distributable earnings of $1.7 billion in the quarter, underpinned by continued year-over-year growth in fee-related earnings, notwithstanding fewer realizations as we indicated would be the case on our last call. Inflows reached $63 billion in the quarter, reflecting sustained momentum across our major fundraising channels and exceeded $270 billion for the last 12 months, the highest level in 4 years.

Most importantly, in terms of investment performance, our flagship strategies outperformed the relevant market indices in the third quarter, led by infrastructure and our energy holdings. Overall, the unparalleled breadth of our firm and the leading platforms we've established across asset classes have allowed us to navigate changing market conditions, deploy capital on the most compelling areas and continue to build value for our limited partners. For shareholders, the firm's underlying earnings power continues to expand substantially, and we are moving towards what we expect will be an outstanding 2027.

Stepping back, the economy is strong today. The key catalyst, as I mentioned, is the historic level of investment taking place to facilitate the development of AI, including data centers, chips, equipment, power generation, construction and engineering services and many other related areas. This engine is supporting exceptional corporate earnings momentum as well as momentum in our own portfolio. We also believe we're in the earliest stages of an AI-driven uplift in productivity. And consequently, an additional multiyear tailwind for corporate earnings and value creation.

Rising productivity over time is also a potential mitigant for inflation. Over the past few weeks, however, we've seen an increased focus in the market on the sustainability and risk of AI-related investment, the significant financing needs of companies involved in the AI build-out in the context of higher interest rates and the levels of valuations.

As we've stated before, we believe the transformative power of AI has precedent in the Industrial Revolution and the commercialization of electricity, and we are in the earliest stages of its development. Demand for compute is accelerating, and we see no signs of that slowing down as AI use cases ramp for both businesses and consumers and the world increasingly engages with the vast potential of this technology. At the same time, there's a critical scarcity of supply that is only intensified. Seldom in my career have I seen such a supply-constrained market of this scale. Current public attitudes towards data centers will likely only amplify this scarcity.

Over time, as the public comes to understand the advancements that have occurred in data center operations and construction, including with respect to water usage and the need for electricity. These attitudes should change. We also anticipate new laws and regulations codifying these advancements will be implemented. Of course, there are risk factors to consider. There will be situations where investors don't have sufficient capital and projects can't procure power equipment with the necessary approvals. At Blackstone, we approach investments in this area with the same rigor and focus on risk-adjusted returns that have defined our investment process for 4 decades.

In AI infrastructure, for example, our data center portfolio is built on durable long-term contracts with highly creditworthy counterparties. Overall, we keep coming back to the fundamental supply-demand imbalance, which supports our conviction that this is the right place to invest significant capital. As the AI revolution progresses, the rising demand for capital is creating generational opportunities for those with the platform, relationships capabilities and discipline to meet this demand. Blackstone has become one of the most important capital providers in the AI ecosystem. We started with our data center development business, focused on serving the major hyperscalers, which provided the foundation for deep partnership with many of today's AI leaders. And we've been teaming up with them in multiple ways.

We've previously announced the launch of Krux, our partnership with Google to help address the shortage of compute. We've also created Ode with Anthropic to drive enterprise adoption of AI. And in August, NVIDIA named Blackstone as one of the small group of managers that work with to deploy $500 billion of large-scale GPU financing. At the same time, the energy area, electrification, reindustrialization and of course, AI are leading to accelerating demand for power following decades of static demand. With one of the largest private energy investing platforms across debt and equity, Blackstone is at the center of this megatrend as well. We were actively investing across generation, transmission, storage equipment and services and more.

In the third quarter, we invested in a leading developer of renewable projects in Europe and committed to acquire a supplier of components for data center cooling systems. In August, our portfolio company, Lancium which is providing energy infrastructure to open AI's flagship data center in Texas announced a strategic investment from NVIDIA to help fund its development of low-cost scale power. And in credit, our energy business, backed approximately 15% of solar and storage projects in the entire United States last year. And together with our equity business has supported nearly 50% and of LNG export capacity. Of course, it's much more than AI and energy driving our firm forward.

Blackstone has established leading platforms to address other paradigm shifts, we see shaping the economy and markets. Private credit is becoming a crucial source of financing for the real economy, and we manage the world's largest third-party focused private credit business. Advancements in drug development are accelerating. We've built the largest sponsor-backed life sciences platform. India continues its ascent, as the fastest-growing major economy, and we are one of the country's largest private investors. Private markets themselves remain on a strong growth trajectory, leading to significant opportunities in secondaries where we oversee one of the largest businesses, and defense is an area, it's in critical need of global capital, and we've been highly active here as well addressing this need in numerous ways.

The firm's positioning across these and other areas, powers our deployment, fuels, fundraising and ultimately translates to greater earnings for shareholders. the virtuous circle underpinning our business. And as always, the Blackstone innovation engine continues to fire, and we are investing today in the leading platforms of tomorrow.

Despite the firm's extraordinary record of growth over 4 decades and our unique positioning in the alternative sector Blackstone's stock, along with the other alternative managers has been under pressure. This is due to some of the factors I discussed earlier, along with AI disruption, and private credit concerns. Over the past 2 years, while our shares are down meaningfully, our earnings have grown nearly 50% with commensurate growth in our dividend. In my experience, disconnects of this type don't typically last. We've seen similar drawdowns for Blackstone's stock before, and each time, our shares ultimately recovered and dramatically outperformed any index comparison on the way back up following the fundamental trajectory of our business.

I have learned the most important thing during these periods to keep our focus on delivering great results for limited partners, pioneering new markets for investment and expanding our fundraising channels, all of which are occurring now. Our firm has enormous earnings power, and we expect outstanding results in the years ahead. I believe the future for Blackstone will be remarkable.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Jon.

Jonathan Gray

Thank you, Steve, and good morning, everyone. In a world where demand for capital is rising, private markets are more critical than ever, helping to bridge the funding gap and supports continued technological innovation. Steve discussed our unique positioning across the world's most important investment teams, which is driving our results. At the same time, the markets from which we raise capital are expanding significantly, including in the vast wealth and insurance channels. Meanwhile, in our institutional business, investor confidence in Blackstone remains extremely high, which is translating to greater capital commitments in many areas.

I will focus my remarks on these growing sources of inflows for the firm. Starting with private wealth, where we delivered another outstanding quarter, our total AUM in the channel grew 15% year-over-year to a record $330 billion, with nearly $9 billion of sales in the quarter. Fundraising for our perpetual strategies was up materially from Q2 despite the slowdown in credit, and we launched a number of new products. Our private equity flagship in the wealth channel, BXPE, reported record sales in the third quarter of $2.9 billion, bringing its NAV to $29 billion in less than 3 years, the largest platform of its kind in the world. Of course, it's all about investment performance and BXPE has delivered, achieving an 18% net annualized return since inception.

BREIT grew 9% year-over-year to $58 billion and saw its best regular way net flows in 4 years in the third quarter. BREIT has generated 21 consecutive months of positive returns and approximately 11% net over the last 12 months for its largest share class. And BXINFRA reported its highest quarterly sales since launch nearly 2 years ago at $1.1 billion, bringing NAV to over $7 billion. underpinned by a 17% annualized net return for its largest share class. The exceptional portfolio positioning of these strategies continues to power our returns. For BCRED, gross sales were nearly $750 million in the third quarter. Repurchase requests were 10% of NAV, above the 5% quarterly limit, largely driven by carryover requests from Q2. We fulfilled approximately 50% of total requests resulting in net outflows of $1.4 billion in the third quarter.

Investors who requested a redemption in each of these 2 quarters of proration received 75% of their capital back in about 90 days, another illustration of the semiliquid structure working as designed. Meanwhile, our innovation in the wealth channel is accelerating. Our new perpetual hedge fund product, BXHF had a strong start out of the gate, raising approximately $400 million, including October 1 subscriptions. This strategy adds another core building block to our suite of solutions. We also launched a new vehicle outside of the U.S. and invest across our wealth strategies, Blackstone Private Markets Funds, or BXPM, which we refer to as Blackstone in a box.

And the first 2 funds in our alliance with Wellington and Vanguard went live in the third quarter, including WVB Blackstone, all private fund, which gives investors in the U.S. access to Blackstone's platform in a single allocation. The opportunity in private wealth continues to expand for the firm.

Moving to the insurance channel, where our AUM grew 14% year-over-year to more than $300 billion. Insurance companies continue to turn to private markets for excess spread, and they're turning the Blackstone for our open architecture multi-client model and access to differentiated deal flow. We've established the largest noncaptive insurance platform in our industry, including 40 clients in our dedicated insurance solutions area, representing leading global firms, of which over half expanded their relationship with us in the past 12 months.

Our investment-grade private credit platform, specifically grew 24% year-over-year to nearly $150 billion. This platform is comprised primarily of insurance capital today, but our engagement with pension, sovereign wealth funds and other LPs is growing. Stepping back, there are 2 key developments underpinning the massive secular shift underway toward investment-grade private credit. First, the build-out of digital, energy and transportation infrastructure is creating compelling deployment opportunities of very significant scale.

Second, large IG-rated corporates are increasingly looking to private markets for bespoke nondilutive capital solutions backed by specific assets to support their balance sheet objectives and fund growth. Blackstone is well positioned to be the partner of choice, given the breadth of our platform capabilities and reputation. Our recent activity includes large-scale financings in numerous sectors around the world, including communications infrastructure and an airline loyalty program in Canada, residential real estate in Australia and digital and energy infrastructure globally. For our clients, we are originating high-quality, long-duration investments with favorable counterparty risk all while generating a premium yield over comparably rated liquid credit.

At the same time, our noninvestment-grade credit platform continues to perform quite well. Our flagship funds reported healthy returns in the third quarter, which Michael will discuss. In direct lending, AUM grew 10% year-over-year to nearly $170 billion despite muted flows for BCRED. Inflows from our institutional LPs remain robust, and they're looking to deploying a lending backdrop that has become more attractive. Overall, our institutional business continues to show solid momentum with AUM up 7% year-over-year. In infrastructure, our dedicated platform grew a remarkable 40% year-over-year to $97 billion. We are approaching the $100 billion milestone only 8 years after launch achieved entirely organically, underpinned by 19% net annual return since inception in the commingled BIP strategy.

Our multi-asset investing business, BXMA, has reemerged as a growth engine for the firm. AUM increased 22% year-over-year to $114 billion, with record organic net inflows in Q3. BXMA delivered its 26th consecutive quarter of positive returns for its largest strategy. In our drawdown fund area, it was another active quarter of fundraising. We held additional closings for our new private equity flagship secondaries vehicle, with over $16 billion raised to date toward a target of at least $22 billion, along with our real estate secondaries vehicle.

We also raised additional capital for our fifth private equity energy transition fund, BETP 5, which hit its $8.7 billion hard cap post quarter end, more than 50% larger than the prior fund. This represents the fourth major drawdown fund at Blackstone to hit its hard cap this year, all of which were meaningfully larger than predecessors and had excess demand, and we expect a fifth, our asset-based finance drawdown vehicle in credit to hit its $4.2 billion hard cap soon. Institutional investor interest clearly remains strong for high-performing Blackstone strategies.

Looking forward, we launched fundraising for our new credit energy transition and infrastructure vehicle targeting a larger size than the prior $7.1 billion vintage, and we'll soon begin raising our third longer-dated for private equity vintage.

I'll finish my remarks today with a comment on real estate, where we've been navigating a volatile interest rate environment. In the third quarter, we increased valuation cap rates across our holdings in response to the increase in base rates, which led to depreciation in our opportunistic real estate funds. Importantly, while higher rates are a headwind to the sector's recovery, strengthening fundamentals are a tailwind. In 2022, in contrast, when the Fed began its rate hiking cycle, cash flow growth was decelerating across many areas of commercial real estate due to meaningful new supply coming online.

Today, there are 3 positive dynamics that didn't exist in 2022. First, demand is accelerating in key sectors, including data centers, where we expect a threefold increase in leasing this year across our global platform, and logistics where our U.S. holdings saw record leasing activity in Q3. These 2 sectors represent 54% of our global real estate portfolio. Second, new supply has fallen to a decade plus low across many types of real estate, while the cost to build continues to increase, development further accelerated by higher rates and crowding out from the AI infrastructure build. And third, real estate debt markets have remained resilient unlike in '22 with the availability of debt up sharply this year.

This doesn't mean there won't be legacy equity and debt investments in real estate that will face renewed pressure from higher rates, particularly in lower growth sectors. But in this cycle, as with past cycles, we believe we are in a differentiated position overall, given where we've concentrated our capital and the quality of our portfolio.

In closing the firm's commitment to our clients is as strong as ever, and we are laser-focused on delivering for them. For shareholders, Blackstone remains brand-heavy asset-light manager with minimal net debt and a compelling recurring revenue model, and we firmly believe with lots of growth ahead.

With that, I will turn things over to Mr. Chae.

Michael Chae

Thanks, Jon, and good morning, everyone. Firm delivered resilient financial results and overall fund performance in the third quarter. And for the first 9 months of the year, generated double-digit year-over-year growth across fee revenues, fee-related earnings realized performance revenues and distributable earnings, all against a backdrop of significant external volatility.

Starting with results. The firm's expansive breadth lifted AUM to new record levels. Total AUM rose 10% year-over-year to approximately $1.4 trillion with double-digit growth across 3 of our 4 segments, including robust momentum in private equity BXMA and healthy growth in credit, notwithstanding declines in real estate as we've discussed. Total fee revenues for the firm rose 8% year-over-year to $2.7 billion. Base management fees reached a record $2 billion in the quarter, trending on the path we previously outlined, underpinned by year-over-year growth of 13% in private equity and 22% in BXMA. Transaction and advisory fees increased 34% year-over-year to $210 million in Q3, reflective of the continued expansion of the firm's platform.

Fee-related performance revenues grew 19% year-over-year to $540 million, with contribution from 10 perpetual strategies, including BREIT and real estate, BCRED and Credit, BIP and BXINFRA, infrastructure and BXPE and private equity. Fee-related earnings were $1.6 billion in the quarter, up 6% year-over-year, equating to $1.26 per share. Distributable earnings were $1.7 billion or $1.32 per share, underpinned by the strong FRE generation. With respect to net realizations, we said on our last call that we expected a sequential decline in Q3 and net realizations were down 20% quarter-over-quarter. Even so, we were able to execute a number of dispositions with the largest source with multiple exits in our Asia portfolio, specifically in Japan and India.

Stepping back, the firm has delivered strong financial performance in 2026 despite the year's considerable geopolitical disruptions and market volatility. For the year-to-date period through Q3, total fee revenues and FRE both grew 17% year-over-year. Realized performance revenues were up 12% and DE increased 12% as well. all while seeing positive momentum across fundraising, investment activity and fund appreciation, the key leading indicators of future financial performance. And as we move towards year-end and into 2027, the setup is quite favorable.

First, with respect to Q4, we anticipate a significant step-up in net realizations in the fourth quarter, including the sales of multiple companies. In addition, BXMA crystallizes performance revenues in the fourth quarter of each year for most of its open-ended strategies with strong returns year-to-date as do a number of strategies across the credit complex.

As we look ahead to 2027, we expect to return to double-digit year-over-year growth in base management fees with key drivers, including the onset of fees from multiple new drawdown funds in private equity, continued expansion of our perpetual platform, growth in credit insurance and the very positive momentum in BXMA. At the same time, the firm's increasingly diversified and scaled base of fee-related performance revenues is a source of strength, including notably, our institutional infrastructure strategy, which will see its next large-scale crystallization of these revenues in 2027 in the context of its remarkable investment performance. And the surface area for generating transaction fees continues to expand, underappreciated [indiscernible] engine of fee revenue growth.

Meanwhile, the firm's embedded realization potential has continued to build. The net accrued performance revenue receivable on our balance sheet, the firm's store value now stands at $7.3 billion, up 12% year-over-year, equating to nearly $6 per share. Nearly 1/3 of the receivable in corporate private equity is public and liquid while the receivable in our private equity energy business has more than doubled year-over-year.

This brings me to investment performance. Amid rising interest rates and significant market volatility, nearly all of our flagship strategies generated positive appreciation in the third quarter and outperformed comparable indices. Our dedicated infrastructure platform appreciated 6.4% in Q3, underpinned by continued extraordinary leasing momentum in our global data center portfolio, as Jon highlighted. For the last 12 months, our infrastructure platform appreciated remarkable 29% compared to a 4% return for the Global Infrastructure Index over the same period.

The corporate private equity funds appreciated 2.8% in the third quarter and 15% for the last 12 months with our holdings in power and electrification representing the largest gains in the quarter. Overall, our private equity operating companies continue to report healthy underlying fundamentals, including low double-digit revenue growth and strength in margins. In credit, our non-investment grade private credit strategies reported a gross return of 2.6% in the quarter and 7% for the last 12 months, reflecting stable underlying credit performance across the vast majority of our holdings, alongside steady current income.

Meanwhile, BXMA reported a 0.5% gross return for the absolute return composite in Q3 compared to a decline in the HFRX hedge fund index and 13% for the LTM period, which was more than double the hedge fund index. BXMA seeks to outperform liquid markets over time with less volatility, and it has done just that, beating the traditional 60-40 portfolio by 170 basis points per year since the start of 2020.

Finally, in real estate, the core plus funds reported positive appreciation of 1.6% in the third quarter, while the BREP opportunistic funds declined 3.2%. Widening cap rates were partially offset by leasing momentum in data centers as well as interest rate hedges. Areas with lower growth were more impacted, including our multifamily housing portfolio. Despite the cost of capital headwinds, favorable portfolio positioning led to positive performance across all 3 of the most recent vintages of our BREP strategies in Q3, global Asia and Europe and double-digit appreciation in these funds over the last 12 months, including 17% LTM appreciation for our latest BREP Global Fund, 24% for Asia and 13% for Europe.

In closing, the firm continues to demonstrate resiliency and fundamental strength. In a very challenging environment, we've delivered double-digit growth across AUM, revenue and earnings, and we believe we are very well positioned for the road ahead.

Thank you for joining today's call. We would like to open it up now for questions.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] We will take our first question from Michael Cyprys with Morgan Stanley.

Phần hỏi đáp

Michael Cyprys

So the market seems to be reacting to perceived risks from AI-related investments in the context of a higher cost of capital backdrop. Just curious how sensitive in your view is this financing build-out to higher rates more broadly, where are you seeing risks here? And how are you protecting your capital from risk of lower-than-expected returns with the AI complex? I know you've talked about long-term contracts, high-quality counterparties. But what risk do those contracts not protect you against?

Jonathan Gray

Well, Mike, obviously, it's an area the market is very focused on today. I would start with where we've really focused, which is on providing compute, which seems to be the area where there are the greater constraints. We continue to see very significant demand at our companies spending it on models is up 20-fold over the last year. We see all sort of productive uses continuing to expand across our portfolio, and we think demand will grow. And the challenge, of course, is chips and data centers and amassing capital at scale. And we think at Blackstone were very unique because we can provide integrated solutions. We can provide power solutions, we can provide financing solutions. We can obviously provide data center solutions. And the vast majority of what we're doing is long-term contracted.

And in the case of the data centers, as you pointed out, these are assets with 15- to 20-year contracts with companies who have $2.5 trillion market caps on average. So I would say for our data center business, in particular, the fact that we wait until we have these long-term contracts before we put the vast majority of capital on the ground, that seems to be a very disciplined approach to deploying capital. And if anything, all the pushback and the squeeze on capital availability and a bit of the shakeout that we're seeing puts us in, I think, a pretty unique space. The fact that we have expertise and that we can amass capital, we can do very interesting things. It's happening in credit. It's obviously happening in real estate and infrastructure here for us.

So we're aware of the risk whenever you have this kind of large investment boom, which is why we focus so much on the picks and shovels while we focus so much on long-term contracted assets, while we focus on not doing things on a speculative basis, all of that makes us feel very good. And if anything, as I said, the shortage of compute is growing and that's making what we build, the entitled sites we have that are powered, they're actually more valuable today. And I think we'll begin to see even larger sites, more concentrated and more integrated with some of our energy solutions.

So we understand that it's a world where people are focused, but the CapEx cycle and the need for compute will continue. There seems to be fewer players who can do this, and that puts us and our investors, we think, in a very good spot.

Operator

We'll take our next question from Bart Dziarski with RBC Capital Markets.

Bart Dziarski

Just wanted to ask around the private wealth fundraising momentum that you're seeing. We're seeing acceleration in 3 of the 4 asset classes. Maybe you can talk through -- I know performers has mentioned, but some of the key drivers and momentum sustaining into 2027. And an early read on BXPM would be great.

Jonathan Gray

So the drivers, as always, are the performance that's the key thing. The brand, of course, and the reach of our wealth team around the world and our relationships. That is a very powerful combination, performance, and it was in the numbers you heard exceptional performance really across the board, if you look at what we've done in private equity relative to the marketplace, infrastructure, same story, real estate, our GAAP versus other competitors is incredibly wide in credit where there was all this talk of some sort of private credit apocalet earlier this year. Of course, none of that has come to pass. And so we're delivering for the customers, and that's the key thing. And this market, as you know, is very underpenetrated. Investors globally are probably about 1% allocated to private assets.

And then to the expansion point, we've got a new hedge fund product that we're excited about, had a very good start out of the box. And it's super early days in some of these multi-asset approaches that will take time because it's a new offering. People are used to buying individual products. We're going to have to educate the market about this. But we've done this before. When we started BREIT, we started BCRED in the early days, took some time I'd expect here, the reaction from the marketplace has been positive, but it's going to take some time to build those particular products.

Operator

We'll take our next question from Craig Siegenthaler with Bank of America.

Craig Siegenthaler

Our question is on the evolution of Blackstone's Capital Markets business. You're still keeping it capital light the holdco while expanding across asset class and geography with investment-grade private credit and increasingly important driver as we just saw on the Broadcom transaction. Could you update us on how the business has evolved? And how we should think about the long-term growth of transaction fees?

Jonathan Gray

Well, I'll just start -- yes, I would just say, generally, what we see, Craig, is as our platform grows, there's just more transaction activity connected to it. more debt and equity offerings as our wealth business grows as our institutional business grows. So it's associated with the overall growth of our AUM and our activity, and we're helping our clients get better execution by using our scale. And then the second component of this is in private credit specifically, some of these large bespoke solutions in real assets require. We're using our very large now $300-plus billion insurance platform some of our institutional clients, particularly on the junior pieces, but in some cases, we distribute a bit as well. And so that's growing as that business growth. So we're continuing with this capital-light approach, that's what we think is the best way for our shareholders. But we're still, at the same time, seeing this pretty rapid growth in transaction and advisory fees.

Operator

We'll take our next question from Alex Blostein with Goldman Sachs.

Alexander Blostein

I was hoping to go back to the AI discussion and maybe just double clicking to the first question for Mike. Obviously, we've seen wider credit spreads and CDS levels move up for neoclouds and to some extent, some of the more established players. Can you help us just understand to what extent that kind of capital markets move impact your own valuation, whether it's on the equity side in things like data centers or anything you guys are doing on the debt financing. And as a follow-up, I guess, to that, as public markets become more constrained, I was hoping you could frame the fundraising opportunity you see across Blackstone to fill some of that gap.

Jonathan Gray

So from a valuation standpoint, there's a little bit of an impact, obviously, on the present value of stabilized assets, which we tend to carry pretty conservatively. So it impacts the multiples a bit Interestingly, Alex, on the new assets that you haven't yet leased, I think you'll be able to command a higher yield to absorb this. and you may end up actually in a better spot because it's getting harder to deliver, particularly at scale. So we don't really see a massive impact. When we commit to these large-scale projects, we line up the financing at the same time. We're very disciplined on how we think about financing this. For the neoclouds, I think the key is, will they be able to deliver on their compute promises. We have done a number of things in that area, providing financing on a secured basis against long-term contracts with the biggest hyperscalers. We're creating a neocloud, but that business is just getting off the ground.

The key for those businesses is the deliverability. Compute prices are actually up 50% year-on-year there's a lot of value in legacy H100 chips before people thought they would depreciate much more quickly. So for us, in a lot of ways, a world where capital is more constrained and where we have the scale, the expertise and access to capital, and this gets to the end of your question, that should be beneficial for us. And the ultimate finished product in a world where there's more scarcity of compute should be worth more. And so in terms of fundraising, we're continuing to be able to raise capital. Obviously, investors are asking the same questions around AI. But what we continue to see is demand and usage of the AI going up faster than the compute.

And again and again, what we're focused on is what we think of the most senior part of the stack, either lending or investing against the energy, which is a very large area for us, the electrical equipment and the data centers, that sort of physical infrastructure that's supporting what's happening that we really like the risk return. And if anything, I think the yields will be going up because it's getting harder to deliver that both physically and because of the need to aggregate financial capital to your point, which is getting tougher.

Operator

We'll take our next question from Chris Kotowski with Oppenheimer.

Christoph Kotowski

Yes. Following up on that last point. I mean people talk about data center finance, like it's all one and you have all these different assets with different risk-reward profiles, the land, the envelope of the building, the power source, the chips that go inside. And I guess, how do you see like the next 3 to 5 years playing out? I mean, it seems to me like your role in all this as being kind of the matchmaker between the capital needs and the capital sources. And do you see more of the opportunity on the like investment grade, drawdown funds, opportunistic side? Or is it -- or is it investment grade and to insurance companies or all of the above? If you could just flesh that out a bit more.

Jonathan Gray

That's funny. That's what I was going to say all of the above because the needs of capital here are so enormous. It's unprecedented in our lifetimes. The amount of capital and so much of it has to come from the private markets because so much of this is development it's not cash flowing. And so having the ability to do hit financings, either on a junior basis, potentially with 1 of the big model companies or on a senior basis wrapped by 1 of the big hyperscalers or chip companies themselves. We're doing that at scale we're obviously providing financing to utilities and pipeline companies, LNG, renewable developers all of that's part of this. They need enormous amounts of capital, and that again is on both the debt and equity side and then in the data center and some of the equipment that goes inside, there's an enormous need for capital.

So as long as the productivity continues that we see at our companies, their ability to serve their customers much more efficiently to create new products and their demand continues to grow. Then I think there's going to be a continued pull for the need of this compute. And we see ourselves as this holistic solution provider. One of the great benefits of Blackstone is that we can play in all these different areas, from investment-grade for more opportunistic equity. We can do it in the U.S., Europe and Asia. We've got all different platforms. We have expertise. We've obviously got relationships with the big hyperscalers to model companies, the chip companies, and we're utilizing all ultimately in our core mission, which is to deliver great returns for our customers.

And despite all the negative things you're reading about AI today, when we look across our business, this continues to be the area where we're driving the highest returns. In the AI infrastructure, a little bit, of course, in the model companies as well. So being able to speak at scale with the key counterparties and be a solution provider from everything from energy through to chips, debt to equity, we think that is a very good place to be. and doing it, I would just that in a very disciplined way.

Stephen Schwarzman

And I'd just add to that, from a risk-reward standpoint, the consistent comp denominator, whether it's our equity or our lending activities in this AI infrastructure area are tenants on our leases and customers on our customer contracts who are the largest, most creditworthy counterparties in the world.

Christoph Kotowski

I'm just curious, just as a follow-up, in the coming years, should we expect things like drawdown funds for to finance GPUs for various providers? Or do you anticipate that most of the funding is going to come in kind of within the traditional real estate and for private equity kind of fund structures and be co-mingled with other kinds of investments?

Jonathan Gray

It's possible here, we'll have a bit of both. I would say in the credit area, we're doing things on a senior basis on investment-grade counterparties, that's being done with a range of insurance companies and pension funds. Those are obviously highly rated underlying securities. And then we're taking a little more risk on the junior side of some of these transactions. In some cases, there are separate SMAs, and you could see us have something focused, for instance, in chip financing specifically. But again, the breadth of what we have in credit, $500-plus billion, that enables us to do a lot. And so I think you could see some dedicated products. But at the same time, customers also want some diversification. And we spent a lot of time, obviously, talking about AI in this infrastructure.

If you look across are $1.4 trillion of assets today between debt and equity, it's about 7% of our total, which is still a very large number, given our scale. But our clients also want other things. They want exposure to defense. They want exposure to life sciences. They want exposure to India and Japan. They want exposure to sports there's warehouses, hotels and travel. So we've got to be mindful of delivering everything. There will be, in some cases, make sense to have dedicated vehicles, but in many cases, it will be in broader commingled vehicle.

Operator

We'll take our next question from Glenn Schorr with Evercore.

Glenn Schorr

You definitely partially just answered this, but I ask it anyway because I think there's a little more color to have. So recognizing this amazing AI CapEx super cycle might be once in a lifetime and huge demand for compute and the capital. I am curious on as you pursue going all in on this as -- and I get it, how you balance the potential of technological obsolescence and then concentration limits for both the fund level and the firm. And I'm just curious how that comes up in your LP conversations because when you say 7% of $1.4 trillion, I'm like, no big deal, anyway.

Jonathan Gray

Yes. We spent a lot of time, Glenn, thinking about that. I do think to emphasize the importance of our focus on the physical infrastructure and the focus on long-term contracted assets. So the vast majority of that 7% is in data centers that have 15- to 20-year lease terms at initiation with 96% investment-grade counterparties with an average market cap of $2.5 trillion.

So when we think about risk, that doesn't feel particularly risky to us. There are things we do with model companies, some of what we're doing in our BXN1 area with application software companies and what we've done in our private equity vehicle for individual investors has involved some exposure to the underlying technology. Now to date, that has worked out incredibly well, but we recognize there are risks.

But we're playing across this entire space -- and at the same time, we have a huge push into energy, which is benefiting from the data centers. It will benefit from robotics, autonomous vehicles, but also just from this large reindustrialization we're seeing and really the electrification of everything. And again, lots of what we do there is long-term contracted, building power plants off our utilities, the financings that we're doing for energy companies for LNG companies. So I would say this is a place that focus a ton on risk on downside. Steve's always stressed the importance of not losing capital we are very wide-eyed about what we're doing here and the way we're deploying capital, the contracted nature of most of what we're doing, and the scale and creditworthiness of the counterparties, all of that gives us a lot of comfort.

Operator

We will take our next question from Bill Katz with TD Cowen.

William Katz

Love hearing the substantial increase in realizations into the fourth quarter. affirmation of the double-digit base management fee growth for next year. Maybe on pack or click into that, maybe one more level. Where do you see the opportunity in the realizations? And then Michael, as you think about the double-digit growth, is there any way to sort of frame that range out a little bit and/or which segments you really see the greatest opportunity when you look across the businesses?

Michael Chae

Sure. Thank you, Bill. On the realization part, just to flesh that out a bit more. As we mentioned, let's take the fourth quarter first. We do have -- we're in the middle of the quarter now. We have high visibility into a significant step-up in net realizations in the quarter. That's driven by closings on a number of previously announced sales, primarily in private equity. And I would say that what we have under contract that is expected to close in terms of carry realizations alone in the fourth quarter. is expected to surpass the total net realization levels for the firm from the third quarter. So that's a positive. And then as you know, we have the scheduled year-end crystallizations in BXMA in the context of very strong year-to-date performance as well as a number of year-end crystallizations in our credit drawdown funds.

So that's a very constructive outlook for the fourth quarter, and we see that as well for 2027. I would just step back and say broadly, whether it's the fourth quarter or next year, in an exit environment that's not been easy, obviously, for the broader industry, we feel like we really do benefit from how we position the portfolio around areas the market wants. So whether it's energy, as we've talked about, power and electrification, our energy private equity NAP or balance were the doubling year-over-year, as we mentioned. Life sciences, Japan, India and Europe actually will see a pretty robust slate of exits this year recently in the leisure and gaming area.

And then from a public market standpoint, in an IPO market that's been open but highly selective, we completed, as you know, 9 IPOs since December 2025, 5 this year. The pipeline remains strong, and that's allowed us to liquefy a good portion of our carry receivable, especially in private equity and to be able to be opportunistic going forward, we find windows in the market with particular securities monetize our position. So that's a bit of the backdrop. There's obviously an inherent lumpiness with realizations quarter-to-quarter as you're seeing and you'll be seeing throughout this year.

But overall, the underlying realization potential, we think, remains substantial and just stepping back further versus other firms, the evolution of our firm towards more perpetual capital means about half of or nearly half of our invested performance revenue eligible AUM is in perpetual vehicles, which, as you know, generate incentive fees without requiring asset sales. So that, we think, is a fundamental advantage for our model.

On base management fees, I would just step back and say that in terms of the path ahead, there are a handful of key drivers, and I hit those in my remarks. There is a full year benefit next year of private equity drawdowns. The third Asia fund was activated in September, the fifth Energy Private Equity energy fund hit our cap just after the end of the third quarter. We're finishing the SPX. So we expect the contribution of management fees from these funds to build through the first half next year as fee holidays conclude and remaining fundraises progress in areas like SP. That's number one.

Second, this powerful expansion of perpetual strategies. Our infra AUM is up 40% year-over-year. Our BXP NAV is up nearly double year-over-year BXINFRA NAV, 2.5x year-over-year. and strong events have been BXM VA when they're up 24% year-over-year record organic net flows in Q3. Strong growth in credit insurance across the institutional insurance channels alongside inevitable and eventual stabilization of retail flows in the BDC area.

And then the fifth piece is ultimately a stabilization of real estate. So I think when you take those pieces together, those are the building blocks, and that's why we feel like we're well positioned in terms of the path ahead.

Operator

We'll take our next question from Dan Fannon with Jefferies.

Daniel Fannon

I wanted to follow up on your comments on obviously higher rates. So curious just a little bit more detail around the fundamentals and what you're seeing in that asset class.

Jonathan Gray

So there really are, Dan, some cross currents underway here. Obviously, rates went up, and that has an impact, particularly on slower growing assets multifamily in the U.S., some of the assets in Europe. But at the same time, we're seeing accelerating fundamentals. So the sharp drop off in supply that started, call it, 3 years ago, is now beginning to show up. And when that limited new supply of real estate meets a very healthy economy, so strong demand. You're seeing cash flows growing nicely. In logistics, we had a 45% increase in leasing in our U.S. platform, which is quite large. It's our largest holding in our real estate business. Hotels nationally, same-store sales are up 6% this year.

The industry was flat last year. Obviously, data center leasing very strong across our various platforms. We're going to do 6 gigawatts this year, we think, which is triple what we did last year. And those 3 categories, when you look at Blackstone Real Estate, that's over 60% of our exposures are in those 3 asset classes. So -- that is very helpful there. At the same time, the debt market, which 3 years ago was facing a lot of challenges in real estate has been healthier. There are legacy deals that may be challenged, of course, and as I said, slower growth assets will be more hit by the rise in rates.

But overall, the underlying fundamentals mean there is going to be a recovery here over time. That's really the key thing. And so that's what I think -- I think that's the reason why the REIT market, despite the rise in rates is still up double digit in the public re market. So as I said, cross currents, but accelerating fundamentals.

Operator

We'll take our next question from Devin Ryan with Citizens Bank.

Devin Ryan

A question on the Vanguard and Wellington products now that they've launched. I appreciate it's small today, but curious how to think about these partnerships and how to think about kind of the expansion for Blackstone into kind of new markets and new customers and kind of making sure that it's incremental versus kind of cannibalistic. But 1 thing kind of thinking about is whether this could meaningfully kind of increase exposure into retirement and other advised assets that have historically been pretty difficult for private markets to reach. So I'm just curious kind of the bigger picture of kind of where partnerships like this could be going.

Jonathan Gray

Well, I think it's very incremental because in many cases, we're trying to get to customers. We have an access. Some of it is structural. So a number of our products to give them maximum flexibility in investing our QP qualified purchaser Limited, and therefore, accredited investors can access them when you put these in a vehicle with a third party, in this case, Wellington sitting on top, you have a broader reverse of investors you can sell to. That's obviously helpful. There are some advisers, and we think underlying customers who want to be able to push an easy button to not have to subscribe to 4 different funds or different funds plus different liquid products.

So we're trying to access that market. And then you point out in retirement, being able to give holistic, integrated solutions with best-in-class products we think that is very helpful. Now we're still -- the administrative process is still going through in D.C. We do think when we get some clarity on that, that will help the retirement space. Again, that's going to be a bit of a journey. But being able to make it easier to access alternatives is the path we've really been on for a quarter century with individual investors. And 10 years ago, it took a step function up when we created these perpetual products, we've been moving, obviously, globally now, and we have a lot of strength in places like Canada, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, the Middle East, even Europe. Now this is another sort of leg on that journey. We're expanding the products. We're making them easier to access. It's sort of one-stop shopping. So I think this is just another step on that journey. It's still early days. but we do think there's a lot of expansion potential there.

Operator

We'll take our question from Dan Welden with Wells Fargo.

Daniel F. Welden

The Insurance segment is running mid-teens, and you mentioned today more than 20 clients have expanded the relationship in the last 12 months. Could you talk about the competitive backdrop? Any ability to sustain this growth? And then also maybe touch on the fee rate of the incremental mandate in insurance versus the existing portfolio.

Jonathan Gray

Sure, I'll let you handle the fee part, Michael. On the competitive dynamic in the market, overall, we really like our position in the insurance market because we are independent and we're not insurance companies are self selling products against others, and our focus is on being a third-party investment manager. It gives us a pretty big universe to serve. And what we're seeing with our clients is they're starting in one area with a separately managed account and then broadening we're continuing to get more and more exposure. And it really started with sort of the big 4 strategic accounts.

We're growing the fastest today are the rest of the clients, who are getting more and more exposure. And what they're finding is that as capital intensity is going up in the economy, the ability to access these investments from someone like us an independent third-party manager, who has expertise in underwriting data centers or energy infrastructure or all sorts of companies and hard assets and the fact that we can aggregate that at scale and deliver them call it, 150 basis point premium for comparably rated public credit, they're finding that highly exact.

And I would say the openness to what we're doing with insurance clients, not just in the U.S. but in Europe and Asia, increasingly, that has really grown. So we think that scale in this market is important. It's hard to enter because you've got to have the ability to write multibillion-dollar checks. We have that ability with our model, and we're doing it, as you know, on an asset-light basis. And so I just think this is it's something that the insurance market from a competitive standpoint is now recognizing that they need to have this capability when they're looking for third-party managers, there are -- there's not a big universe of people doing this at scale.

And the other alternative managers who have different models to own insurance companies, they're obviously very capable. They are competitors in this field. But it's a pretty limited universe of who can write checks and underwrite these transactions. And so we would expect we'll continue to see growth in this insurance space and continue to see a lot of growth around asset-based financing. And by the way, 1 other thing I'd add is the fact that we have such robust institutional business for the junior piece of these transactions is a very helpful component when we're out there competing.

Michael Chae

On the fee rate part, there's a range, of course, as client specific and it's strategy specific, and we have IMAs and SMAs, as you know as well as sort of what the scale of the relationship is. Overall, I would say it averages in the range of 40 to 50 basis points. But again, there's variability there. The margins are attractive, and it is very scalable. We talked about crossing the $300 billion AUM mark and more importantly, our ability to originate and deliver excess spread to our clients' scales as well.

Operator

We'll take our next question from Brian Bedell with Deutsche Bank.

Brian Bedell

Maybe Michael, just to go back to following up on Bill's question on the base management fee growth, in particular, the double-digit range. Just, I guess, in terms of you laid out all the different conditions that are going to contribute to that, which was great. One a couple I wanted to touch on were the dry powder in credit, which is now -- has expanded pretty substantially the potential for deployment to contribute to that fee growth? And then what would hold it back from getting into, say, the mid-teens, I guess, on a year-over-year basis?

And then -- just to the extent that you are able to generate solid double-digit base management fee revenue view, scale in the FRE margin prior earlier and just get obviously that we had sort of very robust margin expansion along with really strong base management fee growth. So would you expect to see a better scaling in the next 1 to 2 years versus the prior 2 to 3 years?

Michael Chae

Brian, a few parts to that. From a -- in terms of credit and deployment, you meant to dry powder balance, it is substantial of $87 billion just for the BXCI portion. If you include BREP, it's $96 billion. And I think you're seeing particularly in the infrastructure and asset-based credit area, which overlaps heavily with pride investment grade, that deployment, and we talked about the qualitative drivers behind that really is -- it's a robust environment. We do see acceleration there. The AUM in our IA BC area was up 31% year-over-year, and that will come more and more into fee earning AUM as invested. The opportunity said is broad and obviously, we continue to fund raise there.

So I think that's how to think about the dynamics in credit. I think in terms of what could sort of constrain it one way or the other. I think it's fair to say the -- a bunch of that is embedded. Obviously, those drawdown funds that are going to have full year -- full year fees next year. Those are more in the Private Equity segment, particularly. Those are more or less built in the big portion of that perpetual fund fee growth, a tremendous sort of, again, built-in NAV growth, broader base entering 2027, one variable at the margin 1 way or the other is obviously somewhat market-dependent around performance and flows in the course of the year.

And then finally, a factor is clearly, the sort of stabilization and inflection point around the real estate segment as it relates to base management fees and also the BDC portion of credit. So the timing of that, we know what we believe -- we know what the end game is, which is stabilization inflection, but the timing of that is a variable as well. And then I just think on scalability and margins, we see it as scalable with the operating leverage built into that, that we've seen across our firm over the long term.

Operator

We'll take our next question from Brennan Hawken with BMO Capital Markets.

Brennan Hawken

I actually, Michael, have another follow-up on that. So you just activated your secondary flagship, you spoke to a robust fundraising that you expect for next year. So that's going to contribute some catch up fees. Is the low double-digit expectation on a core basis? Or would that include the catch-up fees? And then also earlier in the year, you guys spoke to potentially benefiting from some of these great things that you had highlighted in driving that. Will -- how will 4Q bridge us as we get into 2027. Last quarter, you had given a lot of clarity on this quarter. So should we see a step up and what kind of order of magnitude would that be?

Michael Chae

Growth quarter-over-quarter. Before this acceleration into 2027, and as I mentioned earlier, especially as these drawdown funds start to season in -- you'll see in the middle of the year, I think that step up even further. And then in terms of your other question, the first question...

Brennan Hawken

It was really around the step up, shape and management.

Michael Chae

Sorry, yes, yes, that's a simple answer, which is when we talk about low double digits, we're talking about the full year of base management fees over the full year in 2026.

Operator

We will take our next question from Mike Brown with UBS.

Michael Brown

Can you just talk a little bit more about the retail channel right now? Just what are you kind of seeing in terms of demand across the platform? And as we think about this higher rate backdrop, what are you observing in terms of asset allocation shifts in terms of new dollars being put to work? And then on some of these newer perpetual products, any view into how these could scale relative to some of your other successful products like BXPE and BXINFRA?

Jonathan Gray

What we've seen overall has been more resilient than I think market participants expected. We had all this noise around private credit, and the flows into that area obviously slowed in response and yet we raised $9 billion in wealth in the third quarter. There was also a lot of volatility on the screen and our AUM in this space is up 15% year-on-year. So to me, that says there's a lot of desire for the type of products we're offering with the structure and the performance we're delivering if markets go down a lot, that can impact things, if headlines are tough. But what we've been watching here is steady growth, and we expect this growth to continue. We think it will be more and more global it will be through the wire houses and the RIAs. And it will be new products. I think the hedge fund products is particularly exciting.

Again, it speaks to the scale and breadth of Blackstone that we're the leader in that space globally for institutions. Now we can offer something very targeted for individual investors. And again, what we have to do is deliver strong performance and in that case, limited volatility. And if we do that, that can scale and grow to be a large product. And I think there's more we can do over time. This platform we have is remarkable and the strength of the Blackstone brand is remarkable. And it's what enabled us to run a business on a capital-light basis since we started. Since Steve created this firm, we use very limited capital for what we do, and we rely on our expertise, our people our track record and delivering strong performance. And in the wealth channel, I think we've done that exceptionally well across asset classes, and that bodes well both for the existing products and for new products will create.

Michael Chae

I might just also add -- put a fine point of that. On BXINFRA,it's I would say it's only $7 billion. Our distribution strategy around that has been intentional and selective globally. And so the performance has been terrific. The asset class is obviously so large on a global basis. So I think we see a lot of runway on that to scale. Jon mentioned the hedge fund area, where I would just add, the hedge fund area, I think, broadly, has come back into favor with a lot of investors. I think particularly by multi-strategies that have shown you can deliver double-digit absolute returns with less correlation, more market neutrality, -- and a lot of what we're doing are our version of that, leveraging our platform and I think very compelling fees and liquidity provision. So -- and that's an area that's been hard to access in terms of that performance.

So we're very bullish about that. As John said, there's other white space. There are things in the lab around new flagship strategies. And then this multi-asset space is -- that is a long-term game, but ultimately very scalable.

Operator

We'll take our next question from Benjamin Budish with Barclays Capital.

Benjamin Budish

I wanted to follow up on, I think, as Glenn's question from earlier. I think you had asked about Blackstone's concentration. I'm curious if you could talk about how your insurance LPs are thinking about concentration and AI-related debt. It seems like the press and some of the kind of industry data out there would suggest it's small, but growing very rapidly. So as AI CapEx infrastructure finance, financing is picking up, how much like incremental appetite is there from your insurance clients -- and to the extent that they made to get taped out, is this where the sort of third-party kind of traditional institutional IG credit narrative comes into play? Or how should you think about placing all that -- all of those assets?

Jonathan Gray

Well, it's an important question. For our insurance clients, their exposure, as you would imagine, are to the biggest hyperscalers. What we're seeing them do in a number of cases is potentially sell liquid corporate bonds in exchange for some of the asset back. So you have exposure to Microsoft or Meta or so forth, and they're thinking about their exposure to an individual name. And when they look at what we're doing in asset-based financing and the additional spread they can earn for the same underlying credit as well as the support of the physical asset, they think about that as an attractive trade.

So we're seeing some of that -- but yes, they're mindful of their exposure. One thing that I think will evolve over time is an understanding that the compute itself has value. When you look at the airline business, lending against aircraft is an investment-grade business not because Spirit Airlines or an emerging market line has rate credit themselves, but because of the shortage of commercial aviation in the world.

Today when it comes to compute, be it data centers or chips, people are not putting much value on the underlying assets. They're solely looking at the credit of the counterparties. I think that will evolve over time, which will expand some of the capacity these insurance companies have. But I do think it's fair to say today, right now, there is focus on that. I do think that means a broadening of markets. I do think, for us, it means pension funds and wealth funds starting to look at the excess spread in the private investment grade market. I think over time, obviously, there'll be more ownership by mutual funds and others as well. So I think this does need to broaden, but do think the most positive thing here is the underlying asset class has a lot of value and we haven't yet tapped into that. There's really just focus on the underlying name without any credit for the actual assets themselves. We will t

Operator

We will take our next question from Ken Worthington with JPMorgan.

Kenneth Worthington

Multi-asset, strong inflows in 3Q, I think, by far, a record -- can you give us more color on the sales success you had for the quarter? And then what is the organic growth look like as we think about 2027? And can you expand the fee rate from here?

Jonathan Gray

Yes. This is really exciting for us. Our absolute return or hedge fund business, BXMA, had been pretty flat for a long time. And under Joe Dowling, new leadership there, not so newly more years. He's done an extraordinary job turning around performance. The fact that we've beaten 60-40 over that period of time by nearly 200 basis points annually and doing it without any down quarters in the flagship strategy is extraordinary. And clients are responding to that. And we're seeing that growth, to your question in sort of the general absolute return business that we have there. We're seeing strong performance in the multi-strat business. We've begun to build a very high-end wealth business there for a select group of clients that's also performing incredibly well.

And then we have a liquid business harvest focused on MLPs and energy infrastructure that's doing exceptionally well. And now we have a new engine here with BXHF, and so when we look at this aggregately, this feels like a business that should continue to grow. I don't know what the number is. Is it 20-plus percent a year. It's obviously a function of what happens inside of the business in terms of returns, but strong returns with less in the way of net outflows, more in inflows, all of that makes us feel like this is a business that is on a path again to really start to scale.

Michael Chae

And I'd just add, Ken, you asked about sort of fee rate pricing. As John mentioned, different component businesses and what you see in aggregate as a blend, but it's a very positive picture at the division level. In our absolute return area, you have seen versus historical trends, the stabilization of average fee rate, that's both because the comingled portion of that has, I think, resurged in popularity at a higher blended fee relative to customized. In the multi-strat area, we're seeing flows growth there and performance growth, and that is, given the nature of the strategy at a higher fee rate. And then you have things like our portfolio management wealth area, which on average comes obviously at a lower fee rate with very good growth. So the output of that, I think, is a positive and a positive versus sort of what the dynamics were around fees and pricing a number of years ago.

Operator

We will take our next question from Arnaud Giblat with BNP Paribas.

Arnaud Giblat

A quick housekeeping question for me. You've got a number of funds coming up to the 10-, 11-, 12-year anniversaries, which is usually the end of the investment period. Should we expect some set down in the coming quarters?

Michael Chae

Yes, no, that -- it's obviously sort of -- that's been built into our results for many years. You saw actually in this quarter, in the BREP area. The last quarter, in the middle of the quarter, Brett reached the end of its fund life, so there's a termination that actually -- we had a full quarter of that this quarter, which actually was the biggest factor in sort of the management fee quarter-over-quarter dynamics. And then there's other dynamics around that across the suite of older legacy fund our business. But that would be the most notable one. But it's just -- it's -- I would say it's -- that will occur as it has been for years in our business. But there are meaningful developments like the one I just mentioned, we'll expect to call it out for you.

Operator

We'll take our next question from Patrick Davitt with Autonomous Research.

Patrick Davitt

Question is on direct lending dynamics. You mentioned institutions leaning into what looks like a better deployment opportunity but broader deployment data, we can see remains pretty constrained. So could you give a bit more specifics on how direct lending pipelines are looking -- and to what extent the improved spread in terms many players have been talking about has continued or improved through today?

Jonathan Gray

So Patrick, what I'd say is, as transaction activities slowed in the third quarter with the volatility, obviously, that had a direct impact on direct lending activity. So I don't think that is a surprise. On the pricing, what's been beneficial has been the rise in base rates in both the U.S. and Europe. We haven't seen a lot of spread widening spreads have hung in there pretty well. And it's tied to the fact that underlying portfolios are really strong. I mean we saw in our BCRED portfolio, double-digit EBITDA growth for our borrowers debt service coverage ratios are 2.3x. We're just seeing there is a tail of some of the legacy older deals, but that's a small minority. Overall, we're seeing pretty good credit health out there. And on new deals, it is competitive. I'd say it's balanced in terms of capital. So benefit from higher base rates, but spreads, I'd say, pretty constant.

Patrick Davitt

Any improvement in pipelines?

Jonathan Gray

I wouldn't say as of now. I mean I think again, all the volatility has slowed the deal business, but there is a desire, I think, for a lot of transaction activity. And as we've talked about, companies are performing really well. I mean, if you look across the Blackstone portfolio, double-digit revenue growth. So I think as soon as we get a little bit of terra firma in the overall sort of geopolitical world, I think you will see a step function increase in transaction activity.

Operator

We'll take our next -- I'm sorry, we'll take our final question from Crispin Love with Piper Sandler.

Crispin Love

Can you just dig into the real estate management fee trajectory? AUM for the form was flat there, but management fees were down in I appreciate that the transaction other fees was a driver of total fees. But what's the outlook for the base management fees in that segment? What needs to happen for those to stabilize in terms? Just curious on some of the puts and takes there.

Michael Chae

Yes. Actually Crispin, just for the -- in terms of the third quarter and sequentially on the dynamics there. I think with Arnaud's question that the biggest factor there was this fund termination of BREP 8 late in the second quarter, which we had a full quarter effect of this quarter. We mentioned before with, I think, to a lesser extent, this quarter, BPP where there have been in there around lower NAV and certain fee incentives to encourage duration of capital. So those are some of the dynamics there.

I think in terms of the outlook, we'd expect real estate base managements to remain broadly stable through year-end and into 2027. And then and sort of the structural dynamics, as you know, we're currently in a period between major drawdown fundraises, which has its effect on the sequential growth. and then the core plus institutional headwinds I mentioned. But offsetting that BREIT being back in growth mode with improving flows and obviously strong performance.

So I go back to in terms of the outlook, we see from here sequential stability in the coming quarters.

Operator

That will conclude our question-and-answer session. At this time, I'd like to turn the call back over to Weston Tucker for any additional early remarks.

Weston Tucker

Great. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today, and we look forward to speaking after the call. Take care.