James November-December 2024 web - Flipbook - Page 51
across 15+ strategies and our 250+
dedicated professionals serve nearly
300,000 investors.
James caught up with Viral
Patel, the Chief Executive
Officer of Blackstone Private
Equity Strategies (BXPE).
He is a member of the
Investment Committees
for BXPE, Blackstone
Growth and participates in
the Investment Committee
of Technology focusing
deals on private credit.
Blackstone supports 20
innovative portfolio companies
with a presence in Atlanta.
JAMES You’ve been instrumental
in shaping Blackstone’s evolution,
working across all different businesses
for nearly 20 years at the firm. Tell us
about your latest role and what made
the opportunity exciting to you.
PATEL Put simply: I like building, and
my task in my new role as CEO of
Blackstone Private Equity Strategies
is to help build a solution that brings
Blackstone’s private equity platform—
the largest in the world, with $331
million in asets under management and
a 35-plus year track record— to qualified
individual investors. Many people associate investing with the stock market—
but the reality is financial advisors and
their clients can’t access the vast majority of available investments this way.
Over 85 percent of companies with
JAMES What draws Blackstone to
Atlanta? How does it support the
local business community?
PATEL We’re big believers in Atlan-
revenues of more than $250 million are
privately held.
The Private Wealth Solutions
(PWS) team at Blackstone is focused
on helping to unlock these kinds of
opportunities for individual investors,
who have shown an increased appetite for alternatives in recent years.
Access to this platform opens another
potential way for these investors— who
represent an estimated total addressable market of $80 trillion— to build
wealth and financial security.
Given the remarkable growth
PWS has seen since its 2011 launch,
we’re optimistic about what’s next.
The PWS business started as just one
fund offering through one distribution
partner, with $10 billion in AUM from
the private wealth channel. Today,
we manage over $240 billion in assets
from the private wealth channel
ta. In addition to working closely
with financial advisors so eligible
individual investors across the
state can tap into private markets,
we own real estate assets valued
at $7.7 billion and 20 of our portfolio
companies have a presence in Atlanta.
This includes Tropical Smoothie Café,
the beloved fast casual franchise,
SPANX, the iconic shapewear brand
founded by Sara Blakely, and ANDMORE, the owner of AmericasMart
wholesale marketplace. According
to a Georgia State University study,
AmericasMart’s operations contributed $640 million to the Georgia economy between 2018-2019— the economic
equivalent to five Super Bowl-level
events in downtown Atlanta.
And it’s easy to see why businesses want to set up shop here. From a
talent perspective, the city is an ideal
place to grow a business. The diverse
population, culture of entrepreneurship and top research universities have
created an incredible hiring pool for
our companies and assets to draw on.
We’re excited to keep identifying and
investing in compelling Atlanta-based
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