Hi, I'm Matt Turner, the editor in chief of business at Insider. Welcome back to Insider Weekly, a roundup of some of our top stories.
On the agenda today:
- These 17 power players are building Blackstone's $280 billion real-estate empire.
- Wealthy remote workers are flocking to "Zoomtowns" — and pushing out long-term residents.
- Amazon's brick-and-mortar ambitions are floundering.
- Despite lackluster returns, ExodusPoint continues to amass billions.
Let me know what you think of all our stories at [email protected].
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Introducing Blackstone's power players
Investing giant Blackstone is buying up real estate at a rapid rate.
Just this past week, it bet $13 billion on student housing with a deal to buy American Campus Communities. In the past few months, it acquired Australia's Crown Resorts for $6.3 billion, and reinvested in its European logistics real-estate company.
It's working. Blackstone smashed its earnings records earlier this year, largely thanks to its booming real-estate business.
Insider set out to identify the key people driving the land grab, and landed on 17 executives focused on everything from investing in life-sciences office buildings to Hollywood studios to multifamily apartment buildings.
Here, Hana Alberts, one of the editors on the story, gives us a look at the work that went into creating this list.
What prompted you to make this list?
On recent investor calls where Blackstone has reported record earnings, executives like Jon Gray and Stephen Schwarzman chalked them up to the firm's real-estate business. We wanted to identify the influential people leading that division, the largest arm of the private-equity giant, with $280 billion of its $915 billion of assets under management.
Did any of these power players really stand out to you?
I was struck by how Nadeem Meghji, the head of real estate for the Americas, led Blackstone to nab a 49% stake in a cluster of Hollywood studios in June 2020, when the pandemic had thrown the economy for a loop.
I am also amazed by how much these folks can accomplish at young ages. Katharine Keenan became CEO of Blackstone's Mortgage Realty Trust at age 36, and 33-year-old David Levine has been involved with $100 billion in transactions since 2010 and is now cohead of Americas acquisitions.
What are the trends they're keeping an eye on this year?
These leaders are investing in various forms of real estate right now, from apartment complexes in South Florida to college-campus housing. Other hot areas include warehouses (thanks, ecommerce and next-day delivery!) and biotech lab space — but there's a notable lack of investment in major office complexes, another sign of the times.
Read the full story here:
Also read:
The rise of "Zoomtowns"
Zoomtowns, a handful of previously overlooked crannies in the South and Mountain West, have boomed in recent years with an influx of remote-working outsiders. Big-city transplants with big-city paychecks are flooding in — and longtime locals are feeling the squeeze.
Not only are residents being kept out of homebuying, but the rate of displacement is accelerating: Some are being forced to leave their hometowns in pursuit of more affordable housing, or, in some cases, losing their homes altogether.
Read the full story here:
Amazon's physical stores business is struggling to grow
Amazon's projection to open 280 Fresh stores in the US by 2022 has turned out to be woefully off, with just 27 Fresh stores open so far. The company's struggle to reach its Fresh store-expansion goals is emblematic of the challenges it's faced in the physical-retail arena.
While Amazon has perfected the art of e-commerce efficiency, it's facing a much tougher reality in the brick-and-mortar space, driven by the high cost of the stores, a dysfunctional internal culture, and tension with Whole Foods. Some employees question whether the company will ever excel in the offline-shopping space.
Read the full story here:
Also read:
Lagging behind peers, ExodusPoint is set on being boringly dependable
In 2018, ExodusPoint debuted with $8.5 billion, making it the biggest hedge-fund launch in history. Four years later, the fund can be called both a success and a work in progress.
By many measures, including its ability to raise money and grow, it's proved a raging success. It manages $13.5 billion, with offices around the world and a head count close to 700. But to the extent that a startup fund unique enough to have close to $14 billion in assets in four years can have direct peers, it has trailed both them and the markets.
Read the full story here:
More of this week's top reads:
- JPMorgan is tracking office attendance — and some employees are threatening to quit.
- Insiders blame Jeff Zucker and Jason Kilar for the rapid demise of CNN+.
- Ex-senior TikTok employee said he experienced a '996' culture of overwork and secrecy.
- Highly paid LinkedIn ghostwriters are helping execs become influencers.
- Here's how Medable, a healthcare startup backed by Blackstone and Tiger Global, raised $304 million.
- DoorDash just drastically changed the way it compensates employees in stock.
- A leaked investor presentation shows alternative-protein startup Eat Just slashed its 2021 revenue forecast by nearly 50%.
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Curated by Matt Turner. Edited by Jordan Parker Erb and Lisa Ryan. Sign up for more Insider newsletters here.