Blackstone Closes RE 'Opportunity' Fund

The Blackstone Group, a New York-based private investment fund, has closed a real estate opportunity fund with total commitments of $5.25 billion, according to Blackstone.The new fund, together with an international fund, gives the company over $7 billion of capital available for real estate "opportunity investing," Blackstone said. "We have a solid pipeline of potential real estate investments both in Europe and North America, and this new fund will give us the resources to take full advantage of those opportunities," said Chad Pike, senior managing director at Blackstone. The company is an investor, together with Brookfield Properties, in the recently announced acquisition of Trizec Properties and Trizec Canada, and it also acquired CarrAmerica Realty earlier this year.