Blackstone Expects to Triple Money on Equity Office Deal

Blackstone Group LP expects to make at least a threefold return from its $39 billion buyout of Equity Office Properties Trust, the 2007 deal that came to symbolize the boom and bust in the U.S. commercial real estate market.

“Our investors are going to make more than three times their money,” Jonathan Gray, global head of real estate at the New York-based private equity firm, said at a talk Thursday evening at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business in Washington. While real estate investment trusts haven’t rebounded to their 2007 peak, “our investors did well.”