InvestmentNews reported on November 9, 2026, that Blackstone Inc. had said the previous week that it was cutting dividends on two of its funds. The same report pointed to a Wall Street Journal account of departures from the firm's real estate team, which the Wall Street Journal characterized, according to InvestmentNews, as a brain drain. The InvestmentNews summary does not name either fund, so the identification below relies on our own research and is flagged where it is inferred.
The business development company is most likely Blackstone Secured Lending Fund, known as BXSL. Coverage by GuruFocus and Seeking Alpha reported that the quarterly payout falls from $0.77 to $0.60 per share, a reduction of about 22 percent. According to a summary of the company's third-quarter earnings call published by MarketBeat, net investment income was $0.68 per share, below the $0.77 paid during the quarter, and chief executive Brad Marshall described the older dividend as a bridge to a lower level. GuruFocus also reported that non-accrual loans rose to 2.1 percent of fair value from 1.8 percent the prior quarter, and that net asset value per share fell 1.1 percent to $25.25. Investing.com reported that Citizens analyst Chris Muller had expected a more moderate cut to about $0.65 per share before the announcement.
The mortgage REIT is less clear. The most likely candidate is Blackstone Mortgage Trust, NYSE: BXMT, which is externally managed by BXMT Advisors L.L.C., a Blackstone subsidiary. We could not confirm a 2026 cut at that vehicle. The company's Q3 2026 payout was set at $0.47 per class A share, matching the amount it declared earlier in 2026. The reduction we could document was in July 2024, when the dividend fell from 62 to 47 cents per share, a move CRE Daily projected would save about $100 million a year. That 2024 cut was made alongside a board-authorized share repurchase of up to $150 million, according to Financial Advisor Magazine. Until the second fund is identified in the source, readers should treat the mortgage REIT's status as unconfirmed.
The people side of the story is the more contested part. According to the Wall Street Journal's reporting as relayed by alpha-maven.com, nearly a third of the senior managing directors in Blackstone's real estate unit have left over the past three years, a period in which the sector's investment funds slumped. Another report cited about a dozen senior managing directors departing over roughly the same period. A Blackstone spokeswoman told the Journal that the number of senior partners is unchanged and pointed to 45 partners with an average tenure of 14 years. The gap between these counts is not resolved in the sources we reviewed.
The most senior change is at the top. Nadeem Meghji, global head of real estate, is leaving the firm, according to Yahoo Finance and The Real Deal. Meghji has been with Blackstone since 2008 and took over as sole head in January 2026. The firm acknowledged that he is departing and attributed the move to personal reasons. The Real Deal reported that David Levine and Giovanni Cutaia will become co-heads. Quartz noted that former co-head Kathleen McCarthy Baldwin left in 2025 after 15 years at the firm.
For context, Quartz described the real estate platform as managing a portfolio valued at more than $600 billion, a portfolio value figure rather than assets under management. The Yahoo Finance report put the group at more than 800 professionals across roughly a dozen global offices, citing the WSJ. A commentary published by Realty Today said real estate AUM grew from $115 billion to $320 billion during McCarthy's tenure. Yahoo Finance also reported that senior real estate executives typically earn about $2 million a year in salary and regular bonus, and that carried interest once added as much as $15 million for a senior managing director. Those are pay figures, not measures of assets or revenue.
In its own press release, Blackstone Mortgage Trust calls itself a real estate finance company whose business centers on senior lending and other debt-type investments linked to commercial property across North America, Europe and Australia. BXSL is described by Seeking Alpha as a private credit platform. The sources we reviewed did not provide its headquarters, founding year or advisor headcount.
For now, the sources establish the dividend reset at BXSL, the leadership change at the real estate group and a dispute over how many senior managing directors have left. They do not describe a timeline for the co-head arrangement or any further dividend action beyond what has been reported. Readers tracking the story should check the next quarterly declarations and any Blackstone statement that names the second fund.