Blackstone CEO calls Real Estate “good risk”

Blackstone Group LP’s chief executive officer, Steve Schwarzman, said buying real estate, financing energy companies and buying floating-rate fixed income instruments are all “a good place to be.”

“In terms of taking risk today, there are a variety of different places,” Schwarzman said in a Bloomberg Television interview Monday at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California.

Blackstone, which oversees $310 billion, recently led a group to buy $23 billion in assets from General Electric Co., the largest real estate transaction since the crisis. GE said this month that it’s divesting the bulk of GE Capital, sparking global interest in the $200 billion chunk of lending, leasing and related financial operations.

Schwarzman said GE is likely to split the sale into separate components. Blackstone will pursue opportunities if the firm sees “something interesting” among the various businesses that GE is selling.

“We’re normally not in the bake sale business, but you know I like a good cookie as much as the next,” Schwarzman said.