Blackstone’s big retail real-estate fund fulfilled all of its monthly withdrawal requests from investors in February, marking the first time it has been able to do so since late 2022.

The Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust, which has $60 billion in net assets after accounting for debt, said it received $961 million in withdrawal requests in February, according to a letter posted on the Breit website Friday morning. The withdrawal requests were down from $1.3 billion in January.

The Blackstone fund, known as Breit, caps withdrawal monthly disbursements at 2% of its net asset value, and at 5% of NAV per quarter. Barron’s estimates the limit in February was around $1.1 billion to $1.2 billion, enabling Breit to fully pay the $961 million in withdrawal requests.

Breit had limited monthly withdrawals from November 2022 through January 2024 as requests exceeded the monthly limits. Over that period, Breit paid out over $15 billion to its investor base. With the withdrawals, Breit shrunk to $60 billion in net assets from about $70 billion in early 2023.

Breit is a nontraded real-estate investment trust that relies on the fund itself to provide liquidity to investors. It has a semiliquid structure which is designed to protect the Breit investor base by providing orderly payouts to investors, and avoiding sizable sales of assets. 

In a statement, Breit said: “We could not be more proud that this structure has worked as intended to both prevent a liquidity mismatch and maximize long-term shareholder value.”

Breit invests primarily in rental housing—including apartments and student housing—and warehouses. 

Newsletter Sign-up It has generated 10.5% annualized returns since its inception in 2017 based on its largest share class, more than two times the annualized return of the Vanguard Real Estate exchange-trade fund, which holds a broad mix of REIT shares. 

In 2023, Breit did lag the Vanguard ETF, which returned about 12% compared with a loss of 0.5% for Breit’s largest share class.

“Our differentiated portfolio continues to benefit from secular demand tailwinds and is concentrated in high-growth sectors, including data centers, warehouses and student housing, and in fast-growing Sunbelt markets,” Breit said Friday.