Carlyle, Blackstone CEOs see critical supply chains localising

CARLYLE Group and Blackstone’s chief executives said countries and companies will need to reduce their reliance on historical trading partners and build more local supply chains to ensure food and critical goods reach consumers.

Countries need the facilities to store inventory rather than rely on suppliers to deliver goods rapidly, and companies need to bring manufacturing in-house or closer to where they have control, Carlyle chief executive officer Kewsong Lee said.

“It’s going to require money and investment to repurpose and make more redundant and more resilient your entire supply chain,” Lee said Thursday (Jun 2) at the Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference in New York. “We’ve only just started to begin that whole transition.”

The Covid-19 pandemic, shutdowns in China, and Russia’s war in Ukraine have intensified supply shortages and snarled shipping, forcing nations, businesses and financiers to redraw traditional supply routes. The shifts threaten to reverse decades in which far-flung trade partners could be relied upon to provide goods in short order.

Steve Schwarzman, chief executive officer of Blackstone, said that warehouse businesses could benefit from that shift. 

“What happens with any kind of deglobalisation, companies have to just inventory more parts,” he said Wednesday at the same conference. Blackstone is a major investor in warehouses.  

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The change in supply chains may lead to higher prices for consumers. “You don’t get the efficiencies of a global market,” he said. BLOOMBERG