Last week was a big week for private equity. The Federal Trade Commission issued new guidelines that would increase scrutiny of PE rollups, where firms merge portfolio companies and can save on costs. Shortly after, alternative investments firm Blackstone announced in its quarterly earnings that it reached $1 trillion in assets under management—the first PE firm to ever hit that milestone, and, surprisingly, three years ahead of schedule. “They’ve been talking about it a while, but it’s like landing on the moon: It’s still an incredible achievement,” Tim Clarke, senior private equity analyst at PitchBook, told me of Blackstone’s new AUM figure.
But how did they do it?
