The Czech economic daily Hospodářské noviny carries an interview with the senior director of Blackstone Group Chad Pike, asking him how long he the current economic boom has to run. “We’re cautious, but we’re not nervous as in 2006 and 2007. There was a high level of indebtedness at that time and we knew it wasn’t all right,” says Pike. When asked about Blackstone’s investment (through the Residomo fund) into a portfolio of flats in Ostrava that once belonged to the OKD mining company, Pike says his company has invested €200m into them. “For us, it was an opportunity to invest in high quality buildings that needed investment into their long-term development.” In 2017, Blackstone issued €680m in 7-year bonds backed by Residomo’s portfolio with an interest rate of 3.375%. HN asks Pike if the point was to get some returns from the company’s investment or to fund further investment into the flats. “Both apply,” says Pike. “It was also about refinancing Residomo’s old debt. We were able to convince large foreign investors including Allianz and the American asset manager BlackRock to buy the Residomo bonds. I don’t think that would have been possible five years ago. Thanks to the global capital market we managed to secure cheaper loans, which in the past the firm had to borrow on the small Czech market.” Pike says that most of the CZK 500m the company invested in the Czech Republic has gone through Residomo.
