Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

They’re going to have a handful in private credit, private real estate, maybe in private equity. We think we’ll have a slot in almost all of these places because of our brand, our reach, the track record.I think that’s a very good spot to be in. We’ve invested here early. We think we’re going to continue to build on what we’ve done. And if you ask financial advisors out there about Blackstone, I generally think you’ll hear very positive things about the way we’ve done this.We brought fees down pretty dramatically when we entered the space because we were focused on net returns. We’ve added a whole new level of transparency and engagement in all of this. All this investment over a decade plus is going to pay big dividends over time.Steve Schwarzman One other thing.

We’ve been doing this for like ten years, roughly. And when we started, hardly anybody in that channel knew what we were doing or what the program was. And so we started a series of in-person what we call BX universities, Blackstone universities. And we have had, I don’t know the number, whether it’s 10,000 or FAs who’ve been at the firm.And they usually come for a day and we introduce them to each of our different business areas. We teach them how alternatives work. Differences between that and other types of immediately liquid types of investments as well as why the returns are higher.And I can’t overestimate for you of, how important this is, because when somebody comes and spends a day and sometimes it’s more than a day and learn something from the ground up.

They go back and they talk to people who work with them, people who are in the same office and they say, you should really be doing this.And that’s sort of viral kind of internal marketing is pretty remarkable. And since we’ve been doing it, when no one was doing this, I mean, we were just alone. We have a group of people who really trust what we’re doing and our fulfilment organization, which is different and service for customers of that type is totally unlike institutional type of support.And we built that over a very long period of time and no one else had that who competes with us. And so there is a — when Jon mentioned the first mover advantage, it’s really about people and reputation and knowledge and performance. And that type of thing really is quite enduring.

So I leave you with that one.Weston Tucker Thank you, Arnaud. And thank you, everyone, for joining us today. If you have any follow-up questions, look forward to connecting after the call. Thank you.