Blackstone limits REIT investor redemptions again in April

By Chibuike Oguh

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Blackstone Inc on Monday said it had again limited withdrawals from its $70 billion real estate income trust in April as investor redemption requests continued to pile up.

Blackstone said BREIT had received $4.5 billion worth of withdrawal requests in April, but the fund fulfilled only $1.3 billion or 29% of the total redemption requests, the firm said in a letter to investors.

In March, BREIT had also received requests totaling $4.5 billion but it fulfilled just $666 million or 15% of those demands. Redemption requests were $5.3 billion and $3.9 billion in January and February, respectively.

Blackstone has been exercising its right to block investor withdrawals from BREIT since November after requests exceeded a preset 5% of the net asset value of the fund. It has so far paid out $6.2 billion to investors who have been requesting redemptions since November, the firm said.

(Reporting by Chibuike Oguh in New York; editing by Jonathan Oatis)