© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Blackstone Group CEO and co-founder Steve Schwarzman speaks at a Reuters Newsmaker event in New York, U.S., November 6, 2019. REUTERS/Gary He/File Photo
By Rhea Binoy and José José
(Reuters) – Blackstone Inc. chief executive Steve Schwarzman has taken home about $1.26 billion in salaries and dividends by 2022, a regulatory filing showed.
Schwarzman received more than $1 billion in dividends from his Blackstone (NYSE:) shares and $253.1 million in compensation, the filing showed Friday.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE:) cut CEO David Solomon’s compensation by 29% to $25 million by 2022, while JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE:) CEO Jamie Dimon’s total compensation was unchanged at 34 .5 million dollars.
Schwarzman, who was one of the biggest Wall Street contributors to Donald Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign, said in November that he will not endorse Trump in 2024.
Higher interest rates, inflation, recession concerns and geopolitical tensions from the Russia-Ukraine conflict have prevented private equity firms like Blackstone from selling assets for top dollar.
Blackstone’s net gain from asset sales fell sharply by 55% to $366.9 million during the fourth quarter, down from $817.5 million a year earlier.
The company posted distributable earnings of $6.6 billion in 2022, up 7% year-over-year.
“In 2022, Blackstone generated record distributable earnings, $226 billion in revenue and made several of the most profitable fund investments in our history,” a Blackstone spokesman said in an emailed statement to Reuters.
Schwarzman owns about 230 million shares in Blackstone according to a February filing, and the company paid $4.40 in annual dividends, the filings showed.
The world’s largest private equity firm has been dealing with mounting redemptions at its flagship real estate income trust (BREIT), prompting it to exercise its right to block investor withdrawals at 5% of the fund’s quarterly net asset value. .
Blackstone ended the quarter with $974.7 billion of total assets under management and declared a quarterly dividend of 91 cents per share. Blackstone had set a goal of reaching $1 trillion in assets by the end of 2022, an ambition it had pushed forward from 2026.
