Blackstone Group LP Chief Executive Stephen Schwarzman took home at least $800 million in 2017, one of the largest paydays ever at a publicly traded company and the latest affirmation of Wall Street’s postcrisis rebound.
The haul, detailed Thursday in a regulatory filing, underscores the ascendancy of firms that manage private investment funds for institutions and the wealthy. Blackstone BX, -1.26% , which collects fees for managing clients’ money and keeps a slice of investment gains, has benefited lately from robust markets for stocks, debt and real estate as well as banks’ retreat from businesses such as specialty lending, into which Blackstone has expanded.
It’s likely that Schwarzman, 71, took home significantly more than the $800 million disclosed by the firm. Over the past five years, his position has yielded him more than $3.2 billion, largely in dividends and fund payouts. Schwarzman is known to remark that his salary, $350,000, is similar to the starting pay for the firm’s greenest investment professionals.
The sums paid Schwarzman rank with some of the largest gains in corporate history. In 1987, junk-bond pioneer Michael Milken was paid more than $550 million raising debt that fueled the corporate takeovers on which the likes of KKR & Co. and Blackstone were built. Two decades later, hedge-fund manager John Paulsonpersonally pocketed $5 billion when his fund’s huge wager against the subprime mortgage market paid off during the foreclosure crisis.
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
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