Questions that Blackstone limited partners may want to ask the firm

This past week, Blackstone, the world’s largest private equity firm, held its global limited partner (LP) conference in Boca Raton, Florida.

A limited partner in private equity or venture capital refers to an individual or entity that provides capital to a fund without taking part in its management. LPs are typically institutions such as public pension funds, insurance companies, or university endowments.

With so many investors in attendance to hear updates and news from Blackstone, PESP provided these questions for LPs to ask of Blackstone:

• Blackstone owns one of the US’ largest and dirtiest coal power plants, the Gavin Coal Plant in Ohio. Given to the financial risk to investors and health risks to communities throughout the region, when will Blackstone commit to retire the Gavin Coal Plant?

• This month, Blackstone finalized its acquisition of single-family rental landlord Tricon Residential, with 38,000 homes. Tricon had made a commitment to its residents to have moderated rent increases in order to have lower turnover. Will Blackstone honor that commitment or does Blackstone anticipate larger rent increases than Tricon?

• Last year, Blackstone-owned Packers Sanitation (PSSI) settled charges that it employed more than 100 children in conditions of “oppressive child labor.” Will Blackstone implement portfolio-wide labor standards to proactively ensure that other portfolio companies don’t experience scandals similar to the Packers Sanitation child labor scandal?

More on Blackstone

In the year since Blackstone portfolio company Packers Sanitation Services was embroiled in the largest child labor scandal in recent history, the Department of Labor has continued to find health and safety violations at PSSI worksites. OSHA violations at Blackstone portfolio companies helped earn the firm a failing grade on the PE Labor Scorecard.

In January 2023, a Blackstone official pointed to a resumption of evictions for a reason to have confidence in its housing portfolio. In January 2024, BREIT posted its worst yearly performance in its history.

The decline in coal demand poses a financial risk for those invested in older, dirtier plants. Blackstone must now commit to a responsible retirement and transition plan for Ohio’s Gavin coal plant.