Blackstone eyes more hiring in Asia to tap private market demand

[HONG KONG] Blackstone is planning to hire more people across Asia to tap growing opportunities in private markets, said Ed Huang, the firm’s head of Asia-Pacific private wealth.

The alternative asset manager sees huge potential from bringing private markets to individual investors, who are looking for alternatives to the conventional portfolio of stocks and bonds, Huang said on Monday (Jan 26).

“We have roughly doubled our team size over the last two years,” Huang said. “We are certainly continuing to grow our business. We want to expand in Japan. We have added people on the ground in Australia. We are putting people on the ground in Korea. We are looking to continue to scale up our team to meet the opportunity.”

Investment managers are increasingly eager to capture money flows from high-net-worth individuals, in large part because these investors still have negligible exposure to private equity and private credit. While institutions allocate roughly 30 per cent of their capital to private market products, individual investors commit only around 3 per cent, said Huang.

Blackstone has been ramping up its presence in Asia, part of a broader push by global rivals including Bain Capital and KKR. These firms have occasionally competed over the same deals: All three joined a recent bidding race for Japanese personal-care group FineToday Holdings, although Blackstone and KKR ultimately backed away.

Among key investment ideas, the US manager continues to bet on major themes including artificial intelligence, energy and life sciences, Huang said. BLOOMBERG