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The world's largest private equity manager, Blackstone Group, had a 2% increase in profits this past quarter, which it attributed to the unloading of real estate assets and credit portfolio gains.
Blackstone's economic income—which measures both the earnings realized and unrealized investment gains—increased to $520M (44 cents/share), up from $508M (43 cents/share) a year ago, beating analyst estimates of 39 cents/share, Bloomberg reports.
The company's real estate and private equity assets totaled $7.2B in Q2, which the company attributes to office property investments. Its private equity portfolio rose 2.5%—its largest stake is in Hilton Worldwide Holdings, valued at $10.9B, and there was little change in this stake throughout the quarter.
On Thursday, shares rose less than 1% to $26.83 on the New York Stock Exchange. [Bloomberg]
