Episode summary
Wealth Management Invest: Expanding Access to Private Markets with Blackstone’s Farhad Karim
Summary
Farhad Karim says Blackstone has been giving individuals access to private markets for more than 25 years, and that adoption has accelerated as evergreen and semiliquid structures have reduced friction for advisers and clients. He argues that these vehicles are designed to handle redemption limits, not to avoid them, and that the caps protect remaining investors from forced selling while preserving long-term compounding.
He says Blackstone’s private wealth business is built around the same investment process used for institutional clients, with the main challenge being access, education and distribution rather than different underlying strategies. The firm has roughly 450 people globally, with teams focused on product, investor services, education and channel-specific coverage for wirehouses, broker-dealers and RIAs. He says adviser education is central, including Blackstone University and regional outreach.
On product design, Karim says the firm favors diversified, multi-strategy solutions, including its collaboration with Wellington Management and Vanguard, because one-stop access can simplify portfolio construction. He also says Blackstone is focused on themes such as AI infrastructure, logistics, experiential assets and defense, and believes private markets could play a much larger role in retirement portfolios, especially in defined contribution plans where access has historically been limited.
Key takeaways
- Farhad Karim says Blackstone has offered private market access to individuals for over 25 years and has expanded to five perpetual strategies over the last 10 years.
- He argues that redemption caps in semiliquid private funds are working as designed because they prevent forced selling and protect long-term investors.
- Karim says Blackstone’s private wealth model relies on education, product specialists and channel-specific distribution to serve wirehouses, broker-dealers and RIAs.
- He says diversification across private market strategies matters more than single-sleeve exposure, and Blackstone is leaning into multi-strategy solutions with Wellington Management and Vanguard.
- Karim says AI infrastructure, logistics, experiential assets and defense are key thematic areas for Blackstone across private markets.
- He believes private markets belong more broadly in retirement portfolios and that defined contribution plans may be the next major adoption frontier.
Notable quotes
“we've been giving private market access to individuals for over 25 years and historically we've really done that through our draw down fund”
“creating more access reducing friction and designing it in a way that works for a vast number of individuals has really been the change in industry”
“This is exactly the way they were designed. And if I was to look back in the first strategy where we saw wave redemptions for a 12-month period a few years ago”
“so you protect the investors who stay in and want long-term compounding. And that vehicle has compounded at a 10 over the last 10 years”
“We're not going to go and come up with new investment themes and try to wrap them in different ways. We're going to take what we do as a firm and bring it out there”
How the episode opens
Fixed income investors face a changing landscape. That's why Voya Investment Management is focused on helping advisers understand what's shaping fixed income today and what may come next. Explore fixed income solutions, insights, and expertise built for what's next at voyavestments.com.
Hello and welcome to the Wealth Management Invest podcast. I'm your host, David Bodimemer, editorial director with Wealth Management, where I focus on investments. this episode I'm very excited to bring on Farhad Karim who is the COO of Blackstone Private Wealth.
Farhad, welcome to the show.
Thank you very much for having me. — So before we get started, I just wanted to give you an opportunity to tell folks a bit about yourself and your role within Blackstone Private Wealth.
Sure. My name is Fra K and as you mentioned, I'm currently the chief operating officer of our private wealth team at Blackstone. I've been at the firm for over 16 years.
I grew up in our real estate business in London and spent a number of years there. Eventually I became the chairman of Blackstone in Europe having a sort of coordinating role across all our businesses and about a year and a half ago I came back to New York to take on this role in the private wealth group. Just by way of context, our private wealth team are close to 450 people spread around the world.
We have offices across the US and Canada, Europe, and in Asia and Australia as well. And we've been a rapidly growing business.
Yeah. So, we've had this conversation just broadly in the industry for the past couple years about the democratization of alternatives and bringing private markets, alternative investments to the wealth channel.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- private markets
- evergreen funds
- advisor education
- portfolio diversification
- ai infrastructure
Companies and tickers mentioned
- Blackstone Private Wealth
- Blackstone
- Wellington Management
- Vanguard
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Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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