Blackstone Q3 2023 Earnings Call

Good day, and welcome to the Blackstone third quarter twenty twenty three investor call. Today's call is being recorded. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. If you require operator assistance at any time, please press head of shareholder relations. Please go ahead. Thank you, Katie, and good morning, and welcome to Blackstone's third quarter conference call. Joining today are Steve Schwarzman, chairman and CEO, John Gray, president and chief operating officer, and Michael Che, chief financial officer. Earlier this morning, we issued a press release and slide presentation, which are available on our website. We expect to file our 10 q report in a few weeks. I'd like to remind you that today's call may include forward looking statements, which are uncertain and outside of the firm's control and may differ from actual results materially. We do not undertake any duty to update these statements. For discussion of some of the risks that could affect results, please see the risk factor section of our 10 k. We'll also refer to certain non GAAP measures, and you'll find reconciliations in the press release on the shareholders page of our website. Also note that nothing on this call constitutes an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to purchase an interest in any Blackstone fund. This audio cast is copyrighted material of Blackstone and may not be duplicated without consent. On results, we reported GAAP net income for the quarter of September. Distributable earnings were $1,200,000,000 or 94¢ per common share, and we declared a dividend of 80¢, which will be paid to holders of record as of October 30. With that, I'll turn the call over to Steve. Good morning, and thank you for joining our call. Before we begin, wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the recent events in Israel. We were shocked by the horrific terrorist attacks that occurred, which are an affront to our shared human values. And we are deeply saddened by the violence and tragic loss of life unfolding in the region. Our thoughts are with the people of Israel, our colleagues there, and all of those enduring pain and hardship throughout the region. Turning to our results. The 2023 was a volatile period for global markets including a dramatic increase in bond yields. Most major equity indices have declined. And the median US stock is negative on a year to year basis. Higher interest rates along with the confluence of other factors including economic uncertainty, geopolitical turbulence, high fiscal deficits, political dysfunction, and labor unrest have adversely impacted investor settlement. Today's environment is an extremely challenging one for investors to navigate. Against this backdrop, Blackstone generated distributable earnings of $1,200,000,000 in the third quarter, which were stable with the second quarter. The environment today is less favorable for realizations, So we've chosen to sell less. But the firm's underlying earnings power continues to build. And we remain focused on executing the operating plans for our companies and …