Blackstone Sees Earnings Boom Fueling AI, Infrastructure and Fundraising Growth Written by MarketBeat September 15, 2026 Add As Preferred Source Share Share Share This Article Link copied to clipboard. Close Image from MarketBeat Media, LLC. Key Points Blackstone reported strong growth across fundraising and assets: It attracted more than $260 billion in inflows over the past 12 months, while infrastructure assets under management rose 40% year over year to $90 billion and individual-investor assets reached $324 billion. AI and infrastructure are central investment priorities. Blackstone is targeting data centers, power, electrification and frontier AI, while partnering with Google, Anthropic, Broadcom and NVIDIA on AI-related platforms and financing. The firm expects renewed earnings momentum and improved realizations. CFO Michael Chae reiterated expectations for double-digit base-management-fee growth by 2027, supported by new funds, perpetual-capital vehicles, private wealth expansion and a more favorable exit environment. MarketBeat previews the top five stocks to own by October 1st . AI Data Centers Are Splitting Winners From Pretenders in Infrastructure Stocks Blackstone NYSE: BX CFO Michael Chae said the firm sees a constructive backdrop for corporate profits, investment deployment and fundraising, citing accelerating earnings growth, expanding margins and demand for capital across infrastructure, private credit and private wealth markets. Speaking at a financial services conference, Chae described the current environment as a “corporate earnings boom,” pointing to what he said was the fastest S&P earnings growth in five years during the second quarter. He added that 2026 is currently projected to be the strongest year for S&P earnings growth in 25 years, excluding rebound periods following the global financial crisis and COVID-19. Get Blackstone alerts: Sign Up Jersey Mike's Serves Fresh Gains After IPO Stumble Chae said investment in digital and energy infrastructure is driving the expansion, while remaining below the scale of prior investment cycles as a percentage of gross domestic product. He also said companies are only beginning to capture AI-related productivity gains at scale. Blackstone’s portfolio companies have expanded margins by about 700 basis points on average over the past 40 years, reaching the high-30% range, he said. Deployment and Realizations Chae said scale and a broad investment platform are increasingly important because major global markets need more capital to support growth. He identified AI-related infrastructure, power and electrification, life sciences, private-market liquidity solutions, secondaries, private investment-grade credit and investments in India and Japan as key opportunity areas. AI Consolidation Begins: Blackstone & Google Forge an AI Empire According to Chae, 70% of Blackstone’s largest investments over the past 12 months were in those areas. He said the firm’s ability to invest across strategies and regions differentiates it from more narrowly focused asset managers. On exits, Chae acknowledged that traditional private-equity realizations have remained constrained and that sponsor-backed transaction volumes have recovered more gradually than the broader mergers-and-acquisitions market. However, he said Blackstone has benefited from its exposure to larger, higher-quality companies that appeal to public-market investors. Blackstone completed nine initial public offerings over the past year, including five since May. About one-third of its corporate private-equity net accrued performance receivable, or NAPR, is publicly traded, Chae said. The firm has six IPOs currently on file globally. Its energy private-equity business doubled its NAPR over the past year to more than $1 billion, driven by investments in power and electrical equipment. Fundraising and 2027 Outlook Blackstone raised more than $260 billion of inflows over the past 12 months, representing 24% growth from the prior trailing 12-month period and its strongest fundraising stretch in nearly four years, Chae said. He attributed the results to demand across institutional, insurance and individual-investor channels. Institutional inflows rose nearly 50% year over year in the second quarter, he said, while multiple Blackstone drawdown funds reached hard caps. Infrastructure assets under management rose 40% year over year to $90 billion as of the second quarter. In insurance, Blackstone manages $290 billion of assets as the largest non-captive alternative insurance platform, Chae said. That figure has increased nearly fourfold over five years. The firm’s dedicated insurance-solutions business serves 40 clients, a number that has doubled during the past two years. Assets under management from individual investors reached $324 billion, up nearly 2.5 times over five years. Chae said the firm has flagship wealth products spanning real estate, private equity, infrastructure, credit and hedge funds. Looking toward 2027, Chae reiterated Blackstone’s expectation for a return to double-digit base management-fee growth. He cited the full-year contribution from new drawdown funds, expansion of perpetual-capital vehicles, momentum in the BXMA hedge-fund solutions business, transaction fees and a constructive outlook for realizations. AI Investment Strategy and Operations Chae said Blackstone’s AI strategy spans data centers, power, frontier AI companies, credit and partnerships with technology firms. He said the firm invests in data centers supported by committed leases typically lasting 15 to 20 years with highly creditworthy tenants, built-in escalators and attractive yields on cost. He said Blackstone’s power investments were initially based on the long-term need for electrification and grid modernization, a thesis that has been strengthened by AI-related electricity demand. The firm has also made what Chae called “sensibly sized bets” in frontier AI companies with potential for substantial

Should You Buy Adobe Stock At $260? September 15th, 2026 · by Trefis Team ADBE YTD -24.1% SPY YTD +11.9% QQQ YTD +15.6% Analyze ADBE → Adobe (ADBE) reported a record fiscal Q3 2026 and raised its fiscal 2026 revenue and earnings targets . Revenue rose 13% as reported to $6.76 billion, above the $6.70 billion the company had guided. But the key figure that did not move is the one to hold the quarter against: the fiscal 2026 target for growth in ending annualized recurring revenue, or ARR, still 10.2%. Image from Pixabay Adobe Passed The Beat Through To The Guide The fiscal 2026 revenue target moved to $26.576 billion to $26.626 billion from $26.55 billion. The interim CFO sized that at around $50 million at the midpoint, a little less than the $60 million revenue beat in fiscal Q3. The gap is a slight currency headwind in fiscal Q4, and the interim CFO said nothing in the business changed. Non-GAAP earnings per share of $6.13 cleared the $6.08 guide, and the fiscal 2026 non-GAAP EPS target moved to $24.45 to $24.50. Adobe Held Its ARR Target At 10.2% Total ending ARR was $27.5 billion, up 11.2% year over year at the end of fiscal Q3, and the fiscal 2026 year-end growth target for it stayed at 10.2%. Remaining performance obligations, or RPO, grew 8% year over year. One analyst called that the first single-digit reading since early fiscal 2023, and down from the prior quarter. The interim CFO tied the RPO figure to the push to acquire new users through the freemium model , and said RPO typically steps up in fiscal Q4 and then stays roughly flat for three quarters. Another analyst put net new ARR down 36% to 37% year over year. Management’s answer: Adobe has sent a portion of its traffic into the freemium path to acquire users, and will calibrate when to convert them into paying ARR. The CEO said the company was happy to skip pricing actions that might have brought short-term relief but matter less than new user adoption. Creative freemium monthly active users, which include Firefly, Express and the web and mobile versions of Photoshop, crossed 100 million, growing more than 70% year over year. Should You Wait For The Free Users To Pay? So far the paying signal is small against the book. AI-first ending ARR passed $650 million, growing more than 150% year over year, which is about 2.4% of the $27.5 billion total. Management says credit consumption is accelerating quarter on quarter across Creative Cloud and the Firefly app, and Acrobat AI assistant monthly active users doubled from the prior quarter. Management gave no date for resuming the pricing actions it deferred in Creative Cloud, and said it is constantly calibrating the best conversion point. The quarter changed nothing in the near-term trajectory; it confirmed the choice behind it. Management picked user growth over price, and expects fiscal Q4, its seasonally strong enterprise quarter, to bring in more net new ARR than fiscal Q3 did. The year-end ARR figure against the 10.2% target is the first test of whether that choice still delivers the growth management promised. Options price a 42% implied volatility for ADBE, in the 61st percentile of the past year, so check how large a move the options market is pricing . One Report Just Showed How Fast Single Stock Risk Arrives Volatile post-earnings reactions are what concentrated exposure feels like when it lands on a position that matters. Concentration tends to arrive by accident rather than by decision. What your largest position would do to your net worth is exactly what the Trefis Wealth team computes, with the same rules-based systematic discipline that runs our High Quality Portfolio. Request a free vulnerability audit of your biggest positions . > https://www.trefis.com/data/v2/rankings/FetchArticleSourceCheck?gf=Article_EarningsNote&stock=ADBE&gen=20260915&src=agent --> Invest with Trefis → More Ideas →

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