- General
- February 25, 2023
- 3 minutes read
Blackstone CEO Schwarzman Earns $1.3B In Pay, Dividends In 2022
Stephen Schwarzman, co-founder and chief executive of Blackstone (NYSE: BX), the world’s biggest private equity firm by assets under management,…
Stephen Schwarzman, co-founder and chief executive of Blackstone (NYSE: BX), the world’s biggest private equity firm by assets under management, has a lot of reasons to smile lately. In 2022, Blackstone paid out record sums in dividends to shareholders, including Schwarzman who owns roughly 20% of the firm.
- According to Blackstone’s latest annual report, it paid out $4.40 in dividends per share in 2022, meaning $1.02bn for Schwarzman alone. In addition, Schwarzman collected $253mn in compensation as chief executive, mostly through incentive fees and a share of fund profits known as carried interest. His total haul came at $1.27bn, a slight bump from $1.1bn in 2021.
Schwarzman isn’t the only Blackstone executive that reaped big pay in 2022. President Jonathan Gray received $296mn in compensation and $184mn in dividends, totaling $480mn. Chief Financial Officer Michael Chae took home $36mn; Chief Legal Officer John Finley took home $22mn; and Tony James, who stepped down as Executive Chairman this January, took home $97mn in compensation.
Schwarzman received over $1bn in cold cash in 2022 but lost multiples of that on paper. Blackstone’s stock fell 43% in 2022, reducing the value of his stake by $12bn. Yet, he retains a mammoth net worth of over $30bn, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
- Blackstone managed $975bn of assets as of December 2022, the largest of any private equity firm. It earns revenue from management fees and by taking a cut of profits made from its investments. In 2022, the firm declared $8.5bn in revenue and a net income of $3bn.
- Schwarzman co-founded Blackstone in 1985 alongside the late Peter Peterson, who served as U.S. Secretary of Commerce long before teaming up with Schwarzman to launch a private equity firm. Peterson sold the majority of his shares during Blackstone’s public listing in 2007, pocketing $1.9bn, and retired in 2008. He passed away in 2018 aged 91.
Schwarzman has served as CEO of Blackstone for nearly four decades and is no stranger to big pay. According to securities filings, he has received hundreds of millions of dollars in dividends and compensation each year since Blackstone’s public listing in 2007.
