Insider Today: Blackstone’s juggernaut

Jon Gray, President and COO of Blackstone, poses for a portrait at the Blackstone Group headquarters in New York City, U.S., January 18, 2023.

Welcome back to our Sunday edition. Are your internal meetings dragging? Dropbox CEO Drew Houston recommends memo-first meetings inspired by Jeff Bezos.

On the agenda today:

• What an afternoon in two grocery store parking lots reveals about the election.
• Apple should be worried about Gen Z’s love of secondhand iPhones.
• Investment banking made a multibillion-dollar rebound, but risks remain.
• How a 24-year-old cloud-seeding wunderkind plans to save the world.

But first: A new business is in the ascendancy at Blackstone.

This week’s dispatch

Giving credit where it’s due

Jon Gray, President and COO of Blackstone, poses for a portrait at the Blackstone Group headquarters in New York City, U.S., January 18, 2023. 

First, Blackstone was known for its private equity prowess. Then it was real estate. Now, the investing giant has more in credit and insurance assets than in either area.

The $1.1 trillion asset manager now has $354.7 billion in assets in the unit that puts together and makes loans, with company president Jonathan Gray announcing this week that it manages “the largest third-party private-credit business in the world.”

The boom in private credit at Blackstone reflects a broader shift in how companies borrow. Banks have pulled back from lending, opening up an opportunity for so-called nonbank lenders. Apollo for example has set a goal to manage $1.2 trillion in private loans by 2029.

“Everywhere in the world, banks are being asked to do less, and investors are being asked to do more,” Apollo CEO Marc Rowan said when outlining the target.

JPMorgan boss Jamie Dimon has sounded the alarm on the trend, saying “there could be hell to pay” if the private-credit market wobbles.

But given the returns on offer to investors — Blackstone’s private-credit arm generated a 16.7% return over the past 12 months — it looks as if it’s just getting started.

An afternoon with a bellwether

Northampton, Pennsylvania, is one of the state’s two bellwether counties. It voted for Barack Obama twice, Donald Trump in 2016, and Joe Biden in 2020. B-17spent a day speaking with voters, and a mayor, in the crucial swing district.

Many talked about inflation and the economy, but with very different ideas of who is to blame. The mayor of Easton, a Democratic-leaning city, said the election will likely be decided by voters’ impression of the economy — and their grocery bills.

Here’s what voters said.

The used-phone revolution is here

Ghosts from Apple’s past are coming back to haunt it. The market for refurbished phones is taking off, and sellers believe this is their moment to seize.

Environmental concerns, high prices, and uncertainty around the AI that companies are putting into their new devices are just some of the reasons customers are turning to used tech — and Apple should be scared.

Inside the rise of refurbished phones.

Hold the champagne

Investment banking is on the rebound, with banks like Goldman Sachs walloping Wall Street’s expectations. Dealmaking fees this quarter brought the firms out of a two-year M&A slump. And investment bank revenue increased by an average of 30% at Goldman, JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley.

It’s still too early to pop any bottles, though. Interest-rate hikes, the upcoming election, and other external factors could put a damper on investment banking’s resurgence.

What’s in the cards for the banks.

Also read:

Things are looking up for Wall Street, and Goldman’s third-quarter results show why

A wunderkind rainmaker

With his new company, cloud-seeding startup Rainmaker, Augustus Doricko has launched a God-fearing, cigarette-loving tech hub in El Segundo, California.

“Respect to Zuck, but I certainly hope the next cohort of people that build great things do it in the real world,” Doricko told B-17.

Do you remember the rain?

This week’s quote:

“All tech grads are having a tough time right now.”

— Alex Diaz, a computer science major who says he’s applied to hundreds of jobs and is still unemployed.

More of this week’s top reads:

• Wall Street is on a mission to make search sexy.
• Why Amazon is embracing YouTube instead of fighting it.
• Meet the standup comedians satirizing your boss on LinkedIn.
• Citi’s regulatory nightmare still haunts CEO Jane Fraser.
• A product manager shares the résumé that landed him a $180,000 Cisco job.
• Four steps a woman used to be on track to retire at 45.
• A 28-year-old VC partner shares her surefire ways to move up the ranks.
• America’s chipmaking push will continue no matter who gets elected.

The Insider Today team: Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Jordan Parker Erb, editor, in New York. Grace Lett, editor, in Chicago. Amanda Yen, fellow, in New York.