Two months after the tragic death of Blackstone executive Wesley LePatner, who was killed in a July shooting at the firm’s Park Avenue headquarters, Blackstone has tapped Katie Keenan to lead its $53 billion real estate income trust BREIT.
Keenan, 41, will also take over as global head of “core-plus” real estate, overseeing the less risky, lower-return slice of Blackstone’s $325 billion property portfolio, the Wall Street Journal reported. She currently runs Blackstone Mortgage Trust, the firm’s publicly traded commercial real estate lending arm, and co-leads its $77 billion debt business. Tim Johnson, Blackstone’s global real estate debt chief, will step into her BXMT role.
Keenan, who joined Blackstone in 2012 and was close with LePatner, called the appointment bittersweet.
“She cared deeply about this business, and I’m going to be doing my best to help honor her legacy,” Keenan told the outlet.
Launched in 2017, BREIT quickly became Blackstone’s largest fund, amassing assets such as data centers, e-commerce warehouses and housing during a period of rock-bottom rates. Rising interest rates and sagging property values spurred many investors to sell starting in 2022, however, dragging performance. Over the past three years, BREIT returned just 1.7 percent annually, far below its 9.2 percent lifetime return.
Executives now argue the market is stabilizing. Decreasing construction costs have led to more limited supply, debt financing has loosened and cash flows are improving across asset classes. BREIT has logged eight straight months of gains and raised $1.1 billion in the second quarter — its strongest fundraising haul in more than two years — as withdrawal requests eased.
Nadeem Meghji, Blackstone’s global real estate co-head, told the outlet that the fund functioned as designed through a volatile period, adding that Keenan is the right choice to guide the trust through its next growth phase.
LePatner, 43, was fatally shot along with three others when a gunman opened fire in Blackstone’s Midtown lobby at 345 Park Avenue. Authorities said the attacker, who later took his own life, had targeted the NFL, another tenant in the building. LePatner also headed Blackstone’s core-plus real estate business and joined Blackstone in 2014 following a decade in Goldman Sachs’ real estate division.
— Eric Weilbacher
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