Blackstone’s Political Long Game
“Too big to fail” players in private equity lean on Washington and beyond to sustain their growth.
Private equity currently stands out as an extremely valuable sector in an uncertain economy. In what are otherwise volatile conditions—low interest rates and high inflation contributing to mounting corporate debt—private equity firms have been uniquely poised to capitalize, and have wrung record profits out of lagging markets. The private equity industry is currently sitting on a record $1.4 trillion in undeployed capital,1 making it highly attractive to investors in a period where few industries are experiencing extreme growth. Both the number of private equity firms and the assets under their management have grown steadily throughout the 2000s, with the 2020 recession only registering as a slight dip in assets which is expected to rebound.2