Blackstone Group is now the “largest owner of real estate in the world”

Global investment and advisory firm The Blackstone Group L.P., has grown by almost four times its original size at the time of its IPO in 2007. Much of this growth has been driven by the incredible success of its real estate division, which now manages some $100 billion worth of property, having originally been a $17.7 billion business when the company first went public.

“We’re now, we believe, the largest owner of real estate in the world,” Steve Schwarzman, CEO, told Business Insider in an interview at his company’s Park Avenue headquarters in midtown Manhattan. “We have a performance record that is… pretty much in a league of our own, we’ve compounded [returns of] around 18% after fees. We’ve had almost no losses of any type.”

Interestingly, it’s not just real estate where Blackstone is growing.

Last August, HousingWire noted that Blackstone portfolio company Finance of America Holdings acquired a number of mortgage lending companies, a move that will also make the investment firm one of the biggest non-bank originators in the U.S. once those acquisitions have been completed.

The list of lenders Blackstone snapped up includes Pinnacle Capital Mortgage, Gateway, Funding Diversified Mortgage Services, as well as assets of PMAC Lending Services. In addition, Finance of America Holdings already owns Urban Financial of America.

Meanwhile, Finance of America is set to expand its foothold in the mortgage market soon. HousingWire obtained an internal email from Finance of America president Steve McClellan that hinted at more “exciting plans for the future”, including the possibility of further acquisitions.