Fee related performance revenues doubled year-over-year to $296 million generated by multiple perpetual capital vehicles in credit and real estate, including a steadily growing contribution from our direct lending business, scheduled crystallization in our European BPP logistics strategy and BREIT. The setup for these high quality revenues is favorable in 2024 and beyond, which I’ll discuss further in a moment. With respect to margins, FRE margin was 57.9% in the first quarter, in line with full year 2023. Distributable earnings were $1.3 billion in the first quarter or $0.98 per common share, stable year-over-year and underpinned by the growth in FRE. Net realizations remain muted at $293 million. And going forward, we expect a lag between improving markets and a step-up in net realizations.
In the meantime, the firm’s strong underlying FRE generation has supported a consistent and attractive baseline of earnings with Q1 representing the 10th consecutive quarter of FRE over $1 billion. We did execute a number of sales in the quarter, including a stake in one of the largest cell tower platforms, public stock of the London Stock Exchange Group and the sales of certain other public and private holdings. We also closed or announced several dispositions in our real estate and infrastructure perpetual vehicles, which as a reminder, do not earn performance revenues based on individual asset sales but on NAV appreciation. These included a trophy retail asset in Milan for EUR1.3 billion, representing the largest real estate single asset sale ever in Italy, portfolio of warehouses in Southern California and a prime office building in Seoul.
Each of these sales generated a substantial profit individually and in aggregate, a gross multiple of invested capital of approximately 2 times. These dispositions exemplify the significant quality and embedded value within the firm’s investment portfolio. Turning to investment performance. Our funds generated healthy overall appreciation in the first quarter, as Steve noted. Infrastructure led the way with 4.8% appreciation in the quarter and 19% over the last 12 months with broad gains across digital, transportation and energy infrastructure. The QTS data center business was the single largest driver of appreciation for BIP, BREIT and BPP US and for the firm overall in Q1. The comingled BIP vehicle has generated 15% net returns annually since inception, powering continued robust growth with platform AUM increasing 22% year-over-year to $44 billion.
The corporate PE funds appreciated 3.4% in the quarter and 13% for the LTM period. Our operating companies overall reported healthy, albeit decelerating, revenue growth along with margin strength. In credit, we reported another outstanding quarter in the context of strong fundamentals and debt marks generally and tightening spreads with a gross return for the private credit strategies of 4.1% and 17% for the LTM period. The default rate across our nearly 2,000 noninvestment grade credits is less than 40 basis points over the last 12 months with zero new defaults in our private credit business in Q1. Our multi-asset investing platform, BXMA, reported a 4.6% gross return for the absolute return of composite and 12% for the last 12 months, the best quarterly performance in over three years and the 16th quarter in a row of positive returns.
Since the start of 2021, the composite has delivered nearly double the return of the 60-40 portfolio net of fees, a remarkable result in liquid markets. Finally, in real estate, the Core+ funds appreciated 1.2% in the first quarter, while the BREP opportunistic funds appreciated 0.3%. These returns include the negative impact of currency translation for our non-US holdings related to the stronger US dollar, equating to 20 and 60 basis points impact on each strategy respectively. As Jon noted, we see a recovery under way in commercial real estate, and in our portfolio cash flows are growing or stable in most areas. Overall, strong returns lifted net accrued performance revenue on the balance sheet, affirmed store value sequentially to $6.1 billion or $5 per share.
Meanwhile, performance revenue eligible AUM in the ground increased to a record $515 billion. The resiliency and strength of the firm’s investment performance over many years and across cycles powers the Blackstone innovation machine and provides the foundation of future growth. Moving to the outlook, where several embedded drivers support a favorable multiyear picture of growth. First, the firm has raised approximately $80 billion that is not yet earning management fees and new drawdown fund vintages that haven’t yet turned on along with certain other funds. These will commence when investment periods are activated or capital is deployed depending on the strategy. We plan to activate our corporate private equity flagship this quarter, which has raised over $19 billion to date, followed by an effective four month of fee holiday.
We expect to activate several other drawdown funds over the balance of the year followed by respective fee holidays. Second, our platform perpetual strategies has continued to expand, now comprising 45% of the firm’s fee earning AUM. As a reminder, our private wealth perpetual vehicles, including BREIT and BCRED, generate fee related performance revenues quarterly as will BXPE starting in Q4 of this year. Our institutional strategies, BPP and real estate and BIP and infrastructure, generate these revenues on multiyear schedules with a sizable crystallization for the comingled BIP vehicle scheduled to occur in Q4 of this year with respect to three years of accrued gains. Third, our investment grade focused credit business is on a strong positive trajectory, as Jon highlighted, and we expect $25 billion to $30 billion of inflows again this year from our four major insurance clients [alone].
In closing, the firm is moving forward in a position of significant strength. Our momentum is accelerating in key growth channels and our underlying earnings power emerging from this period of hibernation continues to build. We have great confidence in the outlook for the firm. With that, we thank you for joining the call. I would like to open it up now for questions.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] We’ll go first to Michael Cyprys with Morgan Stanley.
Michael Cyprys: I wanted to dig in on infrastructure, the platform continues to build, I heard $44 billion AUM, strong returns, 15% net. Maybe you could just update us on the platform build-out, the initiatives here that can help accelerate growth. It seems like there’s a tremendous market opportunity out there. Just curious what you see as the gating item on seeing this business multiples of the size, maybe talk about some of the steps you’re taking around expanding your origination funnel and infrastructure and as well as expanding the vehicles for capital raising across the return spectrum and customer sets globally?
