{"text":[[{"start":9.25,"text":"Blackstone is attempting to offload more than $2bn of stakes it holds in private investment funds in one of the biggest deals of its kind, offering a test of investors’ appetite for ageing private equity vehicles."}],[{"start":22.8,"text":"The New York-based firm is marketing a so-called collateralised fund obligation that will bundle more than $2bn of stakes in leveraged buyout funds into bonds to sell to investors and insurers, according to people familiar with the matter. "}],[{"start":37.65,"text":"The deal would provide an infusion of cash to investors in a Blackstone Strategic Partners fund, the firm’s unit that invests in other private equity groups’ funds. It is unclear if Blackstone will ultimately go ahead with the securitisation or seek to sell the stakes in a secondary transaction, one person briefed on the matter said. "}],[{"start":58.349999999999994,"text":"Blackstone declined to comment. Jefferies, which is advising on the deal, did not respond to a request for comment."}],[{"start":65.25,"text":"The sale comes during a prolonged downturn for the private investment industry, as buyout groups struggle to exit investments and return cash to the endowments, pensions and sovereign wealth funds that had committed trillions of dollars to private funds. "}],[{"start":80.55,"text":"The buyout industry is sitting on $4tn of unsold assets, with private equity groups struggling to offload investments they made between 2020 and 2022 when interest rates were slashed to zero. "}],[{"start":94.05,"text":"In the ensuing years, the industry was buffeted by central banks’ decisions to raise interest rates, as well as weaker valuations on some of the companies for which they paid top dollar. Market turbulence over tariffs in 2025 and the war in Iran earlier this year also damped sales and flotations of highly leveraged private-equity-backed companies."}],[{"start":116.1,"text":"Large secondary stake investors, a cohort that includes Blackstone, Carlyle’s AlpInvest unit and Franklin Templeton’s Lexington Partners, have increasingly packaged their stakes up into bonds to sell them on to investors who prefer to own securities graded by a credit-rating agency. "}],[{"start":132.6,"text":"Those investors are typically managing money on behalf of insurers which, through securitised and privately rated assets, are helping fuel the growth of the private capital industry. "}],[{"start":143.04999999999998,"text":"The vehicles, which are sliced and diced to give investors exposure to different levels of risk and return, have boomed. Issuance of CFOs soared to a record of $25.9bn last year from a modest $4.8bn in 2021, according to credit rating agency KBRA."}],[{"start":162.14999999999998,"text":"At $2bn, Blackstone’s deal would be one of the largest in the market, coming a year after Carlyle closed on a $1.25bn transaction that it said was the largest publicly rated CFO on record. Coller Capital also raised $2.4bn from Barings and Ares Management for a private structured funding vehicle last April."}],[{"start":183.95,"text":"Blackstone was still early in marketing and structuring the transaction and it was unclear how demand for the riskiest portion of the deal — the equity tranche of the CFO — would materialise, a person familiar with the deal said."}],[{"start":196.7,"text":"The surge in CFO issuance hadprompted investors to be more selective, and recent deals have taken longer to garner demand, a second person said. "}],[{"start":213.45,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1780915178_1529.mp3"}