Blackstone’s Steve Schwarzman’s net worth rose to $30 billion
Blackstone chief executive officer Steve Schwarzman took home a record $1.27 billion for 2022 as the investing titan continued to grow its fortune into one of the largest in the world.
Schwarzman, who owns about 20% of Blackstone stock, has taken in about $1 billion in dividends alone. He also earned $253.1 million in compensation, most of it from incentive fees and his fund earnings cut, known as carried interest.
The annual profit, up from about $1.1 billion a year earlier, underscores Schwarzman’s status as one of Wall Street’s highest earners — with a net worth of $30.6 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. It also shows how closely tied his fortune is to the company he helped found more than three decades ago.
“I own a lot of stocks and invest in all of our funds, so the company is my family office,” Schwarzman, 76, said at an industry conference this year.
His successor as CEO, Blackstone President Jon Gray, raised $479.2 million in 2022. That included $182.7 million from dividends tied to a roughly 3% stake in the company. This is an increase compared to the previous year.
Although none of them receive an annual cash bonus, they still rake in more than the CEOs of Wall Street’s largest investment banks, where top executive compensation packages typically run in the tens of millions. Many bank CEOs have taken pay cuts in what has been a difficult year for financial markets.
In fact, Blackstone lowered Gray’s most recent stock bonus and said he would pay him $30 million for 2022, up from $38 million last year.
Blackstone’s fundraising machinery has slowed over the past year, and market volatility has hampered new deals. A crown jewel real estate fund for wealthy investors, Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust, faced a number of investors looking to exit, prompting it to limit redemptions.
Still, Blackstone’s dealmakers were able to generate more from deal sell-offs in 2022 than they did the year before. The sale of plum stocks like The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas increased the profits available to shareholders. The company saw more fee-related revenue as assets under management reached just under $1 trillion.
“Blackstone has a performance-based compensation model built on long-term alignment with our investors,” a spokesman said in a statement. The company posted record distributable profits and realized some of its most profitable fund investments over the past year, he said.
The 2022 dividend increased to $4.40 from $4.09 a year earlier.
Over the past year, Blackstone’s shares have posted total losses of 40%, including for dividends. In contrast, the S&P 500 delivered 18% overall losses. Since then, the stock has posted about 21.2% total returns this year, outperforming the S&P.
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