Controversial US-listed private equity business Blackstone is probably the most successful alternative investment firm in the world, with $400bn of assets and a track record of having paid $15bn in dividends over the last 10 years. Its founder, Stephen Schwarzman, a close adviser to US president Donald Trump, earns hundreds of millions of dollars a year and is reported to have a personal fortune of over $13bn. All in all, this firm couldn’t be further removed from the world experienced by those living in UK social housing. 

And yet Blackstone, also generally considered the world’s largest real estate firm with $100bn of property assets, last week went public on its desire to set up a UK business to invest in building affordable housing. Some in the social housing sector have thrown up their hands in horror, concerned that Blackstone’s profit motive could end up leaving tenants out in the cold. But the truth is that this private equity behemoth is not the only big investor to conclude that affordable housing could be big business.

“There’s always been private finance in affordable housing. You could say what’s happening now is just a shift from debt to equity”

Andrew Heywood, Housing Finance International

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