The Blackstone Group L.P. (NYSE:BX) is one of the biggest winners today, increasing 5%. Bloomberg explains this movement as follows:
The Blackstone Group L.P. (NYSE:BX), the biggest manager of alternative assets, posted record fourth-quarter earnings as it sold real estate and private-equity investments at a profit. The shares rose the most in a year.
Economic net income, a measure of earnings excluding some costs, more than doubled to $1.54 billion, or $1.35 a share, from $670 million, or 59 cents, a year earlier, New York-based Blackstone said today in a statement. Analysts had expected earnings of 83 cents a share, according to the average of 16 estimates in a Bloomberg survey.
Here are some of the highlights from The Blackstone Group L.P. (NYSE:BX)’s earnings release:
The Blackstone Group L.P. (NYSE:BX)’s record $3.5 billion of Economic Net Income (“ENI”) was driven by its best year of overall investment performance.
ENI was $1.5 billion ($1.35/unit) for the quarter and $3.5 billion ($3.07/unit) for the full year.
Full year Distributable Earnings (“DE”) continued to accelerate to $1.9 billion ($1.56/unit), up 66%.
Distributable Earnings were $0.68/unit for the fourth quarter, driven by Realized Performance Fees and Realized Investment Income totaling $694 million.
Fund activity generated $1.4 billion of Realized Performance Fees, up 126% for the year.
Fee Related Earnings rose to $745 million driven by 18% growth in Fee-Earning Assets Under Management.
GAAP Net Income was $621 million for the quarter and $1.2 billion for the year, net of certain non-cash IPO and transaction related expenses and non-controlling interests, mainly inside ownership.
Total Assets Under Management (“AUM”) reached $266 billion, up 26% year-over-year with double-digit increases across all investing businesses, through a combination of strong inflows and appreciation.
Gross asset inflows totaled $17 billion in the fourth quarter and $60 billion for the year.
The Blackstone Group L.P. (NYSE:BX)’s funds returned $38 billion(a) of capital to investors during 2013.
Some of the hedge funds and institutional investors tracked by Insider Monkey profited handsomely as Blackstone surged 5%. Here are the top 5 investors and their gains (assuming they haven’t changed their positions recently):
1. Robert Joseph Caruso’s Select Equity Group
Number of Blackstone Group shares: 3,337,729
Gain: More than $5 million.
2. John W. Rogers’s Ariel Investments
Number of Blackstone Group shares: 2,476,790
Gain: More than $3 million.
3. Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies
Number of Blackstone Group shares: 2,357,400
Gain: More than $3 million.
4. Thomas E. Claugus’ GMT Capital
Number of Blackstone Group shares: 2,158,400
Gain: More than $3 million.
5. Paul Marshall And Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace
Number of Blackstone Group shares: 910,286
Gain: More than $1 million.
