Blue Owl (OWL) Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript
As we have highlighted in previous earnings calls and continue to call out, the health of our credit portfolios remains excellent, with an average annual realized loss of just 13 basis points and no signs of meaningful stress. In direct lending, the modest level of nonaccruals we have seen are not dramatic in nature, and there has not been an uptick in our watch list levels. Similarly, in alternative credit, we’re not seeing anything that would indicate weakness in consumer credit. In fact, you’ve heard numerous banks highlight the resilience of their consumer portfolios during recent earnings calls, despite some of the financial press headlines. The reaction that we have seen in public equity markets has not been consistent with the strong fundamental performance we see in our portfolios. Our software loans have remained the best sector performer within our direct lending portfolio, and we are very pleased with the credit quality and ongoing health of the underlying borrowers there. Moving on to business performance. During the quarter, we saw over $14 billion of new capital commitments, bringing us to another record last twelve-month capital raise of $57 billion, equivalent to 24% of our assets under management a year ago. This capital raising does not yet reflect any contributions from our acquisitions, which we are anticipating will drive significant growth over the next couple of years. Notably, we have a growing base of AUM not yet paying fees, $28 billion as of the third quarter, which we expect to largely deploy over the next couple of years and drive over $360 million of management fees upon deployment. In direct lending, we’re seeing an uptick in the pipeline for deployment and continue to find high-quality investment opportunities, generally underwriting to a high single-digit unlevered return despite tighter spread dynamics industry-wide. With the risk-free rate expected to end the year below 4%, and with leveraged loan and high yield currently offering 6% to 7%, we believe our direct lending strategy continues to offer meaningful spread premium and an attractive risk-return versus other asset classes. Gross origination in the third quarter was roughly $11 billion, and net deployment increased to $3 billion, bringing last twelve-month gross and net originations to $47 billion and $12 billion, respectively. In alternative credit, we continue to demonstrate scale benefits, deploying approximately $5 billion over the last twelve months, primarily focused on small business, equipment leasing, aviation, and consumer transactions. This is consistent with our broader asset-backed strategy of financing the main street economy. The team continues to make meaningful progress capitalizing on long-standing relationships to deliver for our insurance clients, for whom we have originated several billion dollars this year with a robust forward pipeline. We continue to see the power of the integrated platform more broadly as the alternative credit team works closely with direct lending, real assets, and insurance to build focused efforts in areas such as equipment leasing. During the quarter, we announced a forward flow agreement with PayPal, their first partnership of this sort in the US. I thought it’d be worth spending a moment on how we structure forward flow agreements to create downside protection for our investors and why they’re so compelling. One of the most important elements is the dynamic nature of these agreements, meaning we monitor the performance of the portfolio on a daily basis and we can turn off the flow if the assets are not performing as expected. In addition, our team is focused on partnering with best-in-class originators, and we have a high degree of alignment. In other words, the originators are at a minimum owning risk side by side with us through their balance sheets and are often the first loss risk. Finally, these assets are typically shorter-lived, self-amortizing assets with a duration of two years or less. This means that if there is weakness by vintage or originator, it runs off relatively quickly compared to other forms of credit. We underwrite to severely challenged economic conditions, and when we buy or lend, our starting point is to assume that credit will get worse. To reiterate my earlier comments, we see no weakness of note. In real assets, we have continued to execute across a record pipeline of capital demand in the data center space specifically, with over $50 billion of investment announced over the past two months across two transactions, including $30 billion of capital investment with Meta in Louisiana and over $20 billion of capital investment with Oracle in New Mexico. This is in addition to the previously announced development with Oracle in Abilene, Texas, where Blue Owl Capital Inc. has anchored the financing of approximately $15 billion of project value through phase two. We are fortunate to be in the position to offer the scale of capital and deep sector expertise that together make Blue Owl Capital Inc. the preferred partner for the hyperscalers representing the forefront of cloud and AI innovation, as highlighted by our leadership role in all three of the largest financings in the space. Across our diversified net lease and digital infrastructure, we have raised more than $15 billion in aggregate capital over the past two years, reflecting strong interest from investors in what we’re offering. This only includes $1 billion of the $7 billion digital infrastructure fund we just finished raising. In diversified net lease alone, the $14 billion we have raised over that period compares to $26 billion of total AUM for that strategy two years ago. This includes the largest real estate fund raised in 2024, the top real estate product in private wealth on a net capital raised basis, and over $4 billion raised toward our next vintage and associated co-invest. To add to that, during the third quarter, we announced a substantial strategic partnership with QIA, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, with a shared goal of further scaling and expanding Blue Owl Capital Inc.’s digital infrastructure business. Extending our progress on this front, subsequent to quarter-end, we launched our digital infrastructure semi-liquid product ahead of schedule and anticipate a first close in December, with significant investor interest already observed. We have built what we think is an outstanding business in private wealth, where we have raised over $16 billion over the last twelve months, more than doubling our fundraising pace from two years ago. I believe the strength of our results is indicative of the durable partnerships we’ve built over time and a long track record of bringing innovative solutions to market. Today, we have an installed base of over 160,000 individuals in Blue Owl Capital Inc. products and are adding highly complementary new products in digital infrastructure and alternative credit to the lineup. We’re very excited about the runway for these new initiatives and look forward to providing more detail in the coming quarters. In GP stakes, we closed on two investments during the third quarter, bringing us over 35% invested on our target size for our latest flagship vintage. We also completed our largest strip sale to date, selling about 18% of the assets in fund four for proceeds of over $2.5 billion, delivering a 3.2x gross return on the assets sold across two transactions. As you’ve seen over the past year, we have been successful in delivering liquidity to the investors in these funds while introducing innovative paths for new investors to participate in the strategy. In total, our GP stakes flagship funds have distributed more than $5.5 billion over the last eighteen months, in a market increasingly focused on DPI or distributions to paid-in, situating our funds squarely within the top quartile on this important metric. In considering the strong results we reported for the third quarter and the ongoing momentum across Blue Owl Capital Inc., we continue to center around a few guiding principles that anchor our accomplishments to date and inform our path forward. First, performance remains key. If we do right by our investors, growth will follow, and so our focus is always, first and foremost, on delivering exceptional return per unit of risk and protecting the downside. Second, the duration of capital is highly important to achieve positive investment outcomes over time. We have an embedded base of permanent capital that not only supports the investors in our funds but also creates meaningful visibility in earnings for the investors in our stock. Finally, we are hypervigilant to the notion of complacency. We always look to be skating to where the puck is going, not where it has been. This focus on innovation and being ahead of the curve has brought us to our current position at the intersection of many of the largest secular trends happening across alternatives, and we believe it will continue to serve our investors well going forward. With that, let me turn it to Alan to discuss our financial results. Alan Jay Kirshenbaum: Thank you, Marc. Good morning, everyone. We are very pleased with the results we reported this quarter, marking our eighteenth consecutive quarter of management fee and FRE growth. Over the last twelve months, management fees increased by 29%, with 86% from permanent capital vehicles. FRE was up 19%, and DE was up 15%. We had another very strong quarter of fundraising, taking in over $11 billion of equity in the third quarter and nearly $40 billion over the last twelve months, an increase of over 60% from the prior year and another record for Blue Owl Capital Inc. Of that $40 billion, $23 billion, or roughly 60%, came from institutional clients, reflecting an increase of over 100% versus the prior year period. In private wealth, we have gotten off to a great start with two new wealth-focused vehicles, with significant interest in our alternative credit interval funds and our new digital infrastructure funds. We continue to see a growing breadth of interest in our existing product lineup. We highlight the massive secular trends in play for these strategies on slide five of our earnings presentation. To break down the third quarter fundraising numbers across our strategies and products, in credit, we raised $5.6 billion, a near-record quarter for our credit platform. $3 billion was raised in direct lending, of which $2.4 billion came from our non-traded BDCs, OCIC and OTIC. The remainder was primarily raised across our newly launched interval funds, other alternative credit funds, various diversified lending funds, SMAs, and investment-grade credit. In real assets, we raised $3 billion. $1 billion was raised from Oren, with another $1 billion raised for the seventh vintage of our flagship net lease strategy. The remainder was primarily raised in insurance-focused products and co-invest. In GP Strategic Capital, we raised $2.7 billion, with most of this due to the strip sales that Marc referenced earlier. The latest vintage of our large-cap GP stake strategy is now up to $8 billion raised towards our $13 billion goal. From a forward-looking fundraise perspective here, as we commented on last quarter’s call, we expect the fourth-quarter fundraise to come in at similar levels to the second and third quarters. Turning to our platform, in credit, our direct lending strategy gross returns were approximately 3% in the third quarter and 13% over the last twelve months. Weighted average LTVs remain in the high thirties across direct lending and in the low thirties, specifically in our software lending portfolio. On average, underlying revenue and EBITDA growth across our portfolios was in the high single digits. As Marc mentioned earlier, credit quality remains very strong. In light of the most recent 25 basis point rate cut, we wanted to refresh the framework of how rate cuts impact Blue Owl Capital Inc. and underscore the resiliency of our part one fees. For every 100 basis points of rate cuts, the impact of part one fees is approximately $60 million, or a modest 2% of our third-quarter revenues annualized. Now with that refresher, first, let’s look backward and then we’re going to look forward. Over the last twelve months, we have grown total direct lending management fees by 18% and part one fees by 12% during a period that included 100 basis points of rate cuts and relatively modest sponsor M&A activity, reflecting the advantages of incumbency and scale in this business. Sitting here today, looking at the forward SOFR curve, which shows approximately a 100 basis points of average rate decline in 2026 over 2025, and incorporating our current expectations around fundraising and deployment in direct lending, we anticipate continued growth in part one fees in 2025. Turning to alternative credit now, our strategy gross returns were approximately 4% in the third quarter and 16% over the last twelve months. The vast majority of portfolio returns in this strategy have historically been generated by contractual yield and principal recapture, with relatively short duration compared to corporate credit. Over the past two quarters, we held one of the largest first closes for an interval fund at $850 million and have subsequently raised an additional $150 million to date, bringing us to over $1 billion raised for this new product. An incredibly strong start. We are now onboarding at a number of the major custodians, enabling a broader swath of platforms to distribute products on a continuously offered basis, and we continue to add large distribution platforms to the pipeline for onboarding. We have deployed the majority of this initial fundraise already by upsizing existing partnerships and transactions, as we had more demand for capital than we were able to fill previously. In real assets, you heard about the strength of our data center pipeline from Marc just now. Combining the demand for capital in this area with robust opportunities we see in logistics and manufacturing on-shoring, we continue to expect that net lease fund six would have committed nearly all of its available capital for investment by year-end. Through September 30, we have deployed roughly 50% of this fund, with much of the remainder slated for deployment over the next twelve to eighteen months as various build-to-suit projects reach completion. Our net lease pipeline continues to grow, with over $50 billion of transaction volume under letter of intent or contract to close. With regards to performance, gross returns in net lease were approximately 4% for the third quarter and 10% over the last twelve months. In GP Strategic Capital, we have now closed on four investments to date in the latest vintage of our GP stake strategy. Year to date, we have deployed more than $5 billion of equity in our large-cap strategy, slightly above the average annual deployment over the past few years. Performance in these funds remained strong, with a net IRR of 22% for Fund III, 34% for Fund IV, and 13% for Fund V. A few items remaining here that I wanted to cover with everyone. First, during the quarter, we saw a fee step down on a portion of the AUM in net lease fund six that paid fees on committed capital. This resulted in very modest management fee growth in our real asset platform for the third quarter. As we look ahead, we anticipate a meaningful acceleration in management fee growth for real assets, given our robust fundraising momentum and the strong pipeline we just discussed, with anticipated mid-single digits growth for the fourth quarter-over-quarter, which annualizes to about 20% growth, and further acceleration expected into 2026. As a reminder, we’ve committed 90% of fund six to be invested, but have only deployed roughly 50% of capital out of that fund, providing visibility into management fee growth as those projects reach completion. Second, in GP stakes, there’s a fee step down for fund two that is occurring at the end of October and will result in an annual management fee impact of about $22 million. Finally, when we look at our most important key metrics, like FRE growth and FRE per share growth, or DE growth and DE per share growth, due to the timing of when shares are issued for each of our acquisitions, shares are issued at close, there can be a natural, very short-term divergence between something like FRE growth and FRE per share growth. So to see the best indicator of our current EPS growth rates, we can look at our quarter-over-quarter growth for, say, 1Q to 2Q 2025, or February to 3Q 2025. Since we closed our last acquisition at the end of January, these are clean quarters, meaning each quarter has a full share count and full P&L from all acquisitions. What you see in quarter-over-quarter growth for these recent quarters is a meaningful closing of the gap between FRE and FRE per share, as well as an acceleration in FRE per share growth. So to wrap up, I think you’ve seen from our business performance that nothing has changed fundamentally across Blue Owl Capital Inc. Despite the acute reaction we’ve seen in all stocks over the past month or so, one of the benefits of our model is that we have very high visibility into future earnings, given the recurring nature of our revenues, reflecting our very durable business model. Portfolio quality has remained very strong across the board, fundraising has been very robust, and we continue to lean into our incumbency and scale to drive positive outcomes for our shareholders and investors. Thank you very much for joining us this morning. Operator, can we please open the line for questions? Operator: Please press 1 on your telephone keypad. Please ensure your phone is not on mute when called upon. We ask that you please limit yourself to one question and please rejoin the queue if needed. Thank you. Your first question comes from Glenn Schorr of Evercore ISI. Your line is open. Glenn Schorr: Hi. Thanks very much. Maybe I’ll try to just get a summary with your last commentary on the acceleration. So I think I’m okay with some dilution that gets Blue Owl Capital Inc. into these key growth markets. And maybe it offsets any pressures from any lower rates and maturation of any of your legacy businesses. So the question I have is, we’re trying to solve for the magnitude and the timing of the growth investments when they stop having any dilution and improve the FRE growth, FRE per share growth, and the margin. So maybe just big picture, 2026-2027, are we back on track? Do you see 20 plus percent FRE growth, FRE per share matching that? And do we see margin stabilization and improvement from here? Just trying to get to the summary of it all because I think that’s where you’re getting at. Marc S. Lipschultz: Yeah. Thanks, Glenn. I appreciate the question. The answer is yes. Up across the board, we expect over time to continue to have margin expansion from where we are today. As we get into ’26, ’27, and certainly our 2029 goals, we will expect to see meaningful acceleration of metrics like FRE per share, DE per share, as we look ’25 to ’26. And, again, as we look ’26 to ’27, each of those years builds on each other. We are, from everything we see sitting here, right on track with what we call our North Star, our Investor Day goals of 20 plus percent growth for management fees, for revenues, for 20% growth on metrics like FRE per share. You know what? I’ll just add a, you know, taking the numbers that Alan just said, I know, take a step back for a moment. And, well, to be clear, we understand why people ask questions about acquisitions because this is an industry that hasn’t always done them well. But, you know, I say this all due humility, we’ve done them phenomenally well. I mean, think about where we are and how we’ve positioned for where the real opportunities going forward are, both for our investors in our funds and for our shareholders. You know, our position in digital infrastructure is veritably monumental. You know, we have this incredibly successful interim fund already. In asset-backed, and asset-backed is growing. These are capabilities that are fully integrated. And in fact, you’re already seeing, you look at the Meta transaction, had about 100 people working across the firm on that. That never could have been done absent the capabilities that we have both built organically and added. And so, you know, this sort of recurring, not your mathematical question, because I absolutely understand there’s a mathematical reality that if you issue shares and have less than a year of earnings, then obviously, the per share effect won’t show up until you get the year out. Or if you look at our annualized numbers, look quarter over quarter and annualize them, you can already see what we’re talking about. This isn’t a, we can see it on the come. Just look at the quarter over quarter numbers, annualize them. You can see, you know, that the acceleration coming back to the levels, you know, that we’re all anticipating. So, you know, from where we sit today, just so everyone knows it, those acquisitions are done, dusted, and thriving. And, you know, we view that as having been, you know, no small part of our success. Let’s look at, you know, Orent. Orent today is by far the leader in that fundraising net flows in real estate continuously offered. Our fund, our real estate, you know, traditional flagship fund, as you know, we’ve already raised, you know, nearly half of our target fund size just out of the blocks. We’ve already committed, I think we’re now 90% committed in fund six. I mean, so we are, we’re really thriving not just in our core businesses that we already had, like direct lending, but these additions. So, you know, absolutely, we need to, you know, deliver it through to the numbers. That’s just math, thankfully. It’s not operational. It’s not execution. It’s not strategic. But that math will show through. Alan Jay Kirshenbaum: And maybe one other thing to add. When folks are looking for early measures of success, right, it takes years to ramp products, ramp strategies, to get a good level of AUM that we’re working off of. When you think of early measures of success, it could take nine to twelve months to roll out an organic brand new product, a brand new strategy within your business. Think about what we’ve done with our acquisitions. The interval fund was out in market in less than twelve months. ODiPS, which is our digital infrastructure wealth-dedicated product we’ve talked a lot about here, we’re gonna have our first close in less than twelve months from when we closed the acquisition. So when folks are looking for, you know, how much are we gonna raise, what’s gonna happen over time, it takes time. But when you look for those early measures of success, are they on the right track? I couldn’t agree more with Marc. Wow. We’re hitting on all cylinders and things are pointing up into the right for us with all of these acquisitions. Glenn Schorr: Appreciate that perspective. Thank you. Marc S. Lipschultz: Thank you, Glenn. Operator: The next question comes from Patrick Davitt with Autonomous Research. Your line is open. Patrick Davitt: Hey. Good morning, everyone. I have a question on retail flows, I guess, through the lens of the volatility in August. It looks like October 1 subscriptions were still quite strong. Do you have any early view on how the credit volatility we’ve seen, the news flow has or has not impacted the numbers you’re gonna see for November 1? Thank you. Alan Jay Kirshenbaum: Thanks, Patrick. Appreciate the question. We’re coming off, just for credit, just focusing on what we’re doing there, but I’m gonna pull the lens back a little. Very strong flows. We’re coming off of a record quarter in our wealth-dedicated products for 3Q. We have continued momentum this month. We should build on what we did last month. For products like OCIC, we had a record quarter, I’m sorry, a record month with ORANT. We broke over $300 million. We are well on our way to one of our goals, one of our many goals that we’re on track with, of hitting a billion-dollar-a-quarter run rate for ORET by the end of this year. So we’re very encouraged by what we see, and we see a lot of resiliency in the channel for what we’ve been doing. Marc S. Lipschultz: Orent and OCIC, you know, just to very particularly the way you phrased it, to be clear, they’re accelerating this month. Accelerating. So, you know, I have to add it to the list of imaginary problems, you know, that people are concerned about. You know, and maybe it speaks to this point. Sometimes we get this issue of, you know, oh gosh. Individual investors, are they more volatile? They’re gonna be fickle. Actually, evidence to us is there’s certainly no evidence that it might be to the contrary that institutions actually can sometimes be much more herd-like, can hit, you know, odd rigid barriers or, you know, someone on their board calls and says, gosh. I read an article. I don’t really know. But, actually, the evidence we have doesn’t suggest that individuals, in fact, seems like they’re grasping the reality that these strategies are working really, really well. Perhaps better than, you know, the media and maybe some institutions. Although we’re doing quite well with institutions now as well. Patrick Davitt: Helpful. Thank you. Operator: The next question comes from Brian McKenna with Citizens. Your line is open. Brian McKenna: Thanks. Good morning, everyone. So if I look at all of your public companies, that includes OWL, OBDC, OTF. All three continue to deliver pretty strong results across the board. Look at the underlying fundamentals, they remain some of the best in the industry. And even for your public BDCs, they are really the best in the industry. And then you look at direct lending, gross returns that you’re reported today. It should be another strong quarter for your BDC. So, you know, fundamentals remain really strong, but you look at all the stocks, and they’re trading at pretty meaningful discount to peers. So what do you think is still misunderstood about your businesses within the market today, and what are you doing as a management team to change these perceptions and ultimately get these stock prices higher? And then does there come a point when, you know, insiders start to step in and they ultimately start buying some of these stocks? Marc S. Lipschultz: So as to what investors don’t understand, it’s probably hard for us to, you know, to give you a comprehensive answer. In fact, you obviously talk to a lot of investors. We can offer some theories. I can certainly tell you what we’re doing. We’re doing two things that I think, at the end of the day, you know, will solve this problem. One, we are executing, executing, executing. Business is good. Business is continuing to be good, and we’re focused on continuing to deliver. You know, we haven’t seen an opportunity as good for investors and, by extension, for Blue Owl Capital Inc. as the digital infrastructure investment cycle that we’re in. And so we’re just gonna continue to, you know, deliver results for investors and continue to, you know, deliver, frankly, we’re capital. An arena like that. So I think that, you know, execution’s the name of the game internally, you know, for us. And then communication, we are out on the road talking to shareholders all the time. Everyone in the senior team here is, by the way, happy to do it. We like spending time with shareholders. And we’re out on the road, and we’ll answer any question anybody has. So I think we can communicate. We’re trying to, you know, spend time answering questions as best we can in the media as well. We’re gonna communicate and execute. And to what you just said, look, to our way of thinking, it couldn’t be better set. I mean, the reality is we and every one of these vehicles, they’re an incredible value. So, you know, rather than complain about it, which I know is a natural, you know, tendency we could have, that seems kinda pointless. Rather, we’re just gonna continue to deliver spectacular results. Look. Look at where we are compared to where we were when we set up our, you know, our investor day. We’re tracking right along. Look at, like, our DE this year versus what people thought a year ago, compare that to what the revisions happened with our peers. I mean, we’re in a different category, as we should be, because we have a highly predictable fee stream. So I don’t know. We’ll take advice from anyone on how better to do either of those things or crack the code. But history as a guide, you know, those who join us now, I think, are gonna be the beneficiaries of, you know, of the upside from here, which we think of as substantial. Brian McKenna: Thanks so much. Operator: Thanks, Brian. The next question comes from Craig Siegenthaler with Bank of America. Your line is open. Craig Siegenthaler: Hey, good morning, Marc, Alan. Hope everyone’s doing well. My question is on the digital infra business. So we’ve seen these large deals recently, like the $27 billion deal with Meta to develop the Hyperion data center. And I’m sorry. I’m losing my voice a little bit here. But I believe the underlying leases have maturities of about fifteen to twenty years. So my question is, under what scenarios can Meta terminate or walk away from the lease earlier than fifteen years? And if they do that, what compensation would they owe Blue Owl Capital Inc.’s funds, and how would that impact the IR for Blue Owl Capital Inc.’s LPs on that investment? Thank you. Marc S. Lipschultz: Yeah. So the leases, first of all, let’s step back. The leases are designed to function for twenty plus years. So just to start to level set to your point. There is a, it is, and this is part of the skill and art that both Meta and I think we brought to it. They’re designed in a very bespoke way to create elements of flexibility for Meta. Of course, as you know, they’re actually just yesterday, we’re talking about how they’re actually rapidly accelerating their spend. So I think this is more about having a flexibility, which I give them full credit for, than having anything that’s, you know, likely to be used. But just to cut through it all and not want to lose the forest for the trees, if there were an early termination, there is a perfectly mathematical make-whole where we make the debt makes all its money. We make a spectacular equity return. So it really doesn’t, we expect it’ll end up being a twenty plus year undertaking, but it actually, you should call it, doesn’t matter. If it terminated anywhere along where they have the options to do it, there is a value guarantee on the assets. So we make a great return under any one of those conditions. So we’re happy any which way. Craig Siegenthaler: Thank you. Thanks, Craig. Operator: The next question comes from William Katz with TD Cowen. Your line is open. William Katz: Thank you. I wish there’s a day we could ask more than one. Maybe sticking with the digital story, I was wondering if you could help us understand how quickly you might be able to absorb the most recent flagship fundraising given the size of the pipeline. And then secondarily, despite the strong macro dynamics, the fund performance has been pretty weak two quarters in a row. I was wondering if you could help us unpack why that’s the case and would that be a hindrance to drive growth from here. Thank you. Alan Jay Kirshenbaum: Yeah. Let’s first just clear up the accounting there for kind of, not your misunderstanding, but understandable misunderstanding of the return point. So, Alan, why don’t you cover that first, and then I’ll talk about the funds. Alan Jay Kirshenbaum: Sure. Thanks, William. This quarter, we saw some mark-to-market on swaps that we have around debt that’s in place. So, you know, when we look at this, we see these are very long-term projects. When you look at the underlying performance of the data centers, they are very strong. And I’ll tell you, on average, across our digital infrastructure funds, fund one, two, and three, we have IRRs in the high teens. So we’re experiencing great IRRs for our investors. This is short-term noise. Marc S. Lipschultz: Yeah. And just to frame that in a way that’ll be apparent to everyone, I’m sure it’s already apparent to you. These are very long-dated leases with rent escalators. Not to be lost, by the way. That escalator is very powerful over time. But to match, we will, you know, we swap debt in many cases against them. So we’ve locked in our returns, and our returns are outstanding. But as an accounting matter, the swap itself gets marked for accounting purposes, unrelated to the fact that really it’s just serving to create this fixed income stream. So that is just an accounting quirk. In terms of the absorption of the fund, yeah, listen, we are heavily committed already through fund three. And so we will be back with fund four in 2026. And at this point, as I said, you know, the demand for capital given the partnership we have and the capabilities we have, you know, vastly exceeds our current capital on hand. So that’s a great opportunity for, you know, our LPs or, frankly, others that, you know, may join us in other strategic roles, take, like, QIA, who joined us as a strategic partner in our continuously offered product. Billion-dollar commitment to help anchor that product. And, you know, we’re gonna continue to grow that partnership. They’ve been a fantastic strategic partner. And they, you know, they picked this platform because they see the scale and quality of the opportunity. So, you know, we’re gonna continue to develop these both strategic partnerships, and we’re already seeing really great fund flows, you know, and uptake rates, speeds, you know, of adoption we’ve not seen before in the continuously offered world. So, you know, we’re trying to gather the capital, but it’s still very imbalanced. We need much more than we have to capture, you know, what we may think are once-in-a-generation opportunities. Alan Jay Kirshenbaum: When you think of the momentum we have here, William, you think about fund three closed at the end of April. And within twelve to eighteen months, we should be out, and we expect we will be out till our first close. Not just marketing. Our first close for fund four. And the digital infrastructure wealth product I mentioned a few minutes ago, our plans were to launch that in early 2026. We’re ahead of that plan. We have so much momentum. We have two of our biggest distribution partners live in the system. We expect our first close to be December 1, and we are really encouraged by the early signs we’re seeing in the channel there. William Katz: Thanks for the good update. Marc S. Lipschultz: Thank you. Operator: The next question comes from Benjamin Budish with Barclays. Your line is open. Benjamin Budish: Good morning, and thanks for taking my question. I wanted to ask about operating leverage in the business. You indicated, I think, earlier in the Q&A that you expect FRE acceleration in the next few years. Curious, if I just look at this quarter, you did have a big step up in credit management fees, I think driven by the listing of OTF. But margins are still sort of in that low 57% range. I guess, was presumably embedded into your prior full-year guidance. But can you just remind us, like, why wasn’t there more in the quarter as we think about the next several years, obviously a lot going on in the top line and from a fundraising perspective, but how else are you thinking about expanding FRE margins and what that may look like? Thank you. Marc S. Lipschultz: Sure. You know, there’s a reason that we grow faster and more predictably than anyone in our industry. And there’s a reason that we get to strategic places like digital infrastructure and alternative credit. And I say that other people are doing a phenomenal job at it, they are. But there’s a reason when you just step back and put the numbers on a piece of paper, we are, you know, kind of in a category of our own, and it’s because we invest in continuing that track forward. So, you know, we will continue, of course, to be a highly profitable business. You continue to see our margin this, you know, this quarter at 57% plus. Sure, there’s some operating leverage in the business over the, you know, over the medium term. But just from our point of view, that is not where you make money in our business. If we had 30 more basis points of margin and gave up investing in the thing that’s gonna be the continuation of this accelerated growth two years from now, it’d be a really terrible trade. So, you know, we don’t find the idea of trying to squeeze a penny out of our margin versus invest it in the future a worthwhile trade. So yeah, there’s operating leverage, but you should expect, I mean, I don’t want to tell you what you should want us to do. That’s obviously your call. But I would proffer you should want us to continue to invest in this dramatic outperformance over the long term versus, you know, try to optimize the last dollar of margin today. And so that’s where we are. We will continue to make growth investments. So I’d rather have you think about us as, you know, growing for a very, very long time at a very high margin with the highest fee rate, by the way, which we do have in the industry. But whether, you know, we take the last 50 basis points of margin to the bottom line or put it into the business, pun intended, on the margin, you should expect we want to put that in the business so we continue to outperform so dramatically. And, you know, North Star, $5 billion of revenue, $3 billion of FRE. That’s where we’re going. Benjamin Budish: Alright. Fair enough. Thank you, Marc. Operator: The next question comes from Crispin Love with Piper Sandler. Your line is open. Crispin Love: Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I want to go back to digital infrastructure. Definitely had some meaningful announcements recently, but Qatar Investment Authority partnership, the Meta JV, you think of upcoming data center opportunities, what type of pipeline are you looking at? Are you able to put a dollar value on that? And then as well as just expected structures for these types of investments. Could structures evolve? And then just on the Meta JV, why do you think the JV structure made the most sense for that one? Marc S. Lipschultz: Yeah. It’s a wonderful question about the structures because if you look at the three largest data center complexes financings done, which, you know, no surprise, I’ll note all three are ours. Each one is a different structure. And I think this is really an important point to understand. In the hundreds and hundreds of billions, and to quantify, I don’t even quite know how to quantify the pipeline because it’s so vast in terms of the number of projects that we’ve already signed or that we’re advanced on or that we’re talking about. And remember, the size of each one is just so massive. But, you know, in excess of $100 billion for sure, in terms of the way we would look at our pipeline. So let’s call the pipeline or addressable market for practical purposes kind of, you know, infinite. It doesn’t really matter. That’s not the constraint. And by the way, if I’m sure we all did, you know, look at the numbers from yesterday from all the big hyperscalers. And the articles in the journal. And as far as reading the journal, three articles in a row, all talking about one very core theme. From Google, from Meta, from Microsoft. Dramatic acceleration in capital spending beyond what the big numbers are people already thought and had. And, you know, if you actually, I think, talk to a lot of folks, they’d say we’re underspending the opportunity, not over. Now I don’t want to be in the position, and we’re not in the position to take that risk. We do things under long-dated contracts with exceptionally high-quality companies where we earn, you know, these really, really strong and growing yields. So that’s our part. We’re the picks and shovels. We’re the infrastructure of that part. But with that said, there are multiple structures, and this is part of the strength we can deliver at Blue Owl Capital Inc. I think the reason that we are prevailing in this market is because we can serve as that one-stop shop, depending on what kind of solution you want. And I’m just quickly going to take you through this. If you look at the Abilene, Texas or Stargate project as sometimes referred to, so that project, we’re developing in part with a fantastic company, Crusoe, who recently just, you know, announced their own actual financing, which we’re a part of. But that really reflects the strategic partnership we have with Crusoe. They’re outstanding in what they do. They’ve been a pioneer in this business. They have big projects they’re working on, and we’re working together on how we look there and the development business, and we’re in the, you know, own the capital business. It’s a wonderful compliment. So in that case, they’re the developer, and we’re the owner, and Oracle is the tenant. So that’s one structure. In the case of the Borderplex project, which is now, and that one, by the way, phase one and two, that was a $15 billion project. In Borderplex, that’s a $22 billion project. In Borderplex, we’re the developer. Remember, we have a business called Stack. Stack has about a thousand people in it. This is another one of the, that may or may not be fully understood, but the gigantic barriers to entry here is everyone’s happy to own a data center. We just took one of our data centers we had created organically in the, say, we’re creating our data centers at seven, eight cap rates, we just agreed to sell one at a 5.25 cap rate. So everyone would like to own them, the question is how do you get to own them at seven and eight cap rates? Well, you have to have the partnerships and be able to either with Crusoe or on your own, in the case of this, on our own, develop. So Stack, we have a thousand people that do design, build, operate. And it’s not about what you did today. It’s about what you did two years ago to position yourself with the right land, the right power, and the right understanding of the regulatory frameworks and how to actually get this done. Because getting it done matters as much as the capital, and we do both. And then the third iteration is Meta. Meta develops and is very good at developing their own data centers. So they say, okay. Well, I don’t need the development. What I need is someone that can deliver $27 billion of capital that understands my business and understands all the nuance that are gonna go into developing this project. So our expertise isn’t like, we need to build it away for them, but rather expertise allows us to structure in partnership with Meta in a way that meets their needs. So they say, oh, yeah. Like, it’s great. We get to work with someone that understands what we’re doing. And so Meta is building that project. So what I like about that, just so happens that all three, you see three different all good flavors depending on what the user of the data center wants. And we’re positioned to do all three, and we’re happy to do all three. Crispin Love: Great. Thank you, Marc. Appreciate the detailed answer. Marc S. Lipschultz: Of course. Thank you. Operator: The next question comes from Brennan Hawken with BMO. Your line is open. Brennan Hawken: Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Wanted to ask a clarifying question and then one a little bit more forward-looking. So I think Alan, in your prepared remarks, you were talking about the GP stakes business and then you went into fundraising expectations. So I was a little unsure about whether or not. I thought those fundraising expectations were firm-wide and not narrowly to the GP stakes business where you expect 4Q to be equal to 2Q and 3Q levels. But just want to confirm that. And then you also highlighted expectation for management fee acceleration in the real asset business. Does that mean that the fee rate step down that we saw this quarter should recover? Or are you gonna be seeing strong revenue growth despite the lower fee rate? Alan Jay Kirshenbaum: Thanks, Brennan. Good question. Appreciate you asking. I’m sorry. I have an opportunity to clarify. On the first question, 4Q similar to 3Q, 2Q, that was a comment out of this prepared remarks, same comment as last quarter. Strictly related to the sixth vintage of GP stakes. So that’s what I was focused on in that comment. Narrowly, not broadly for Blue Owl Capital Inc. And on the real asset side, yes. The answer is yes. So the fee rate looks lower this quarter, a little bit of a mix shift. It’s a little bit of a fund six fee step down. But the fees for fund seven haven’t really fully kicked in. We’ve caught a little bit of capital, but not that much. And so that’s the dynamic you’re seeing. We’ve raised money for ORAN. Fees are coming down a little here because of the fund six step down. So it’s very, very modest growth there. You’re gonna see an acceleration of growth and continued fee expansion for real assets. Brennan Hawken: Great. Thank you for the clarifications. Alan Jay Kirshenbaum: Thank you, Brennan. Operator: The next question comes from Steven Chubak with Wolfe Research. Your line is open. Steven Chubak: Hi. Good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. Morning, Steven. So hope you’re both doing well. Marc, you provide some really helpful detail on the forward flow agreements and your approach to underwriting and structuring these deals. Certainly, a growing area of focus among investors, and I was hoping to delve a little bit deeper. There’s like, four subcomponents I was hoping to unpack. First, if you could talk about the quality of the underlying credits. Second, the amount of subordination you build into these structures. Third is the volume it’s expected to produce in a typical quarter. And then the appetite to afford similar agreements. So I know that was quite a bit, but credit quality, subordination, volume, and appetite for more partnerships. Marc S. Lipschultz: Sure. So let us tackle all, and they’re all good questions. They’re all highly salient. These flow partnerships, you know, are something we very much like because what we’re doing, again, kind of theme, no surprise, in the Blue Owl Capital Inc. system, which is we like to find the people that are best at what they do, work with them, in the case of, say, a Meta, work with them in the case of, say, a PayPal. Buy them when it’s something that is an internal asset management capability that we, you know, need to, should have, a la IPI or Atalaya. So, you know, I think the theme you’re gonna always see is we’re looking for best of breed, and with, you know, we are very keenly aware of what we are great at and not great at or put another way. When you focus, you tend to be really great at things. There’s a reason that we are, you know, outperforming for our LPs in almost everything we do. So because we focus. We don’t have that many strategies. There’s a reason we win partnerships that I think, you know, many would love to have because we’re more focused in a few core areas that really work. And so the flow partnerships are part of that. So let’s start with quality. Well, quality, what you see is we’re looking, and this is quite important too, even with all the noise in the market. We work with Prime. We’re not in the subprime business. And so we’re talking about Prime Credit One. That is why you’ll see partnerships with people like PayPal or SoFi who have strong prime flows in what they take in. So that’s a logical starting point. So quality, very high. We don’t play in the edges. We don’t do, you know, anything meaningful in subprime. We do prime. And then, of course, a lot of it’s just, you know, business finance, business lease finance, and otherwise. So, high credit quality, you know, by individual credit, and then, obviously, of course, it gets down to the packaging, the diligence, and then to your second point, subordination. In everything we do in these partnerships, either the person we’re partnered with is owning part of the same risk we are owning on their balance sheet or, in most cases, subordinating. Now the amount of subordination, I can’t really, I can’t give you a numeric answer because, obviously, that depends on the exact credit quality, how much, what controls there are, what can go into the box. But important to understand, we’re not buying a package of things and saying, well, good luck with that. They’re keeping a parallel piece or usually a subordinated piece. And the flow agreements, we can shut them off. You know, we’re doing daily feeds. This is a very data-intensive business. We’re doing daily feeds between them and us. We see everything that’s processing. And so these flow agreements can be shut off if there’s deterioration around parameters. In which case, you know, they actually run off quite rapidly. One of the beauties of alternative credit and flow arrangements is the duration per package per month is very fast. So in a world of liquidity, if people want liquidity or strategy where you can get to liquidity, as an answer to a change in the world or a change in preference, here. You know, you gotta match structure to strategy if you really wanna deliver for investors. So that’s on subordination. You know, there is most often subordination. There’s always at least parallel ownership. There’s tremendous day-to-day controls. So you’ve seen some of the announcements we have. Now remember, it’s important when we talk about $7 billion, for example. It’s not that we put out $7 billion. Right? That is gonna be deployed over a couple-year period in this sort of running cycle of take receivables, and then they get quickly paid down, and then you add more receivables. So we can take you through, and we can certainly try to make sure people understand going forward a bit of, like, what’s the deployment, yeah. I don’t know. Peak deployment or deployment pace. But it really gives us what is a lot of visibility and optionality, maybe for lack of a better term, but it’s not like we put $7 billion to work in any given moment. That, you know, divide that over a couple of years effectively. And then on doing similar partnerships, absolutely. You know, again, what we want are the best originators in the world and leverage their capabilities and will be, you know, the best capital partner they can have, partner of choice. So, you know, that marries with a lot of what we do. Same thing we do in the world of direct lending. Right? We’re not in the private equity business. You know, we don’t compete with our borrowers. They’re in the business. They’re great at it. They originate, if you will, and then we support their purchases. So yes. So absolutely continue to see similar partnerships formed. Steven Chubak: That’s great, Marc. Thanks for the comprehensive response. Really appreciate it. Marc S. Lipschultz: Thanks, Steven. Operator: The next question comes from Alex Blostein with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Alex Blostein: Everybody. Good morning. Thanks. Another one for you guys related to credit and while the three instances that occurred a few weeks ago all seem to be related to fraud and sounds like there’s another one this morning with HPS and kinda that those headlines coming out in the last hour or so here. But I guess, as you look at the credit exposures broadly across the platform and acknowledging that, you know, those four are, like, not really related to you guys and sounds like it was all related to fraud. But how are you addressing potential fraud risks across the platform? Is there anything differently that you’re starting to look at? Is there extra diligence you’re starting to look at throughout the portfolios? And, ultimately, will that require any incremental spend if these instances start to kinda percolate throughout the industry? Marc S. Lipschultz: Yeah. Thanks. And I think maybe what I’m gonna take us a slight step back and just, you know, try to comprehensively address the overall credit theme question and, you know, well phrased. So I think it’s actually important to level set at one place to begin with, which is credit quality here, our peers, and at the banks for that matter. You know, despite some tempests and teapots, you know, is very strong. Very strong. You know, I’m gonna come back to us, but let’s just start with the ecosystem in total. It’s very healthy. The credit ecosystem is extremely well-capitalized. It’s trillions and trillions of dollars, and, you know, and then you have a problem. And in this case, as you point out, a handful of problems that appear to be rooted in fraud, which is kind of the least relevant indicative, you know, issue when it comes to credit quality or systemic problems. And yet has, you know, garnered extraordinary amounts of attention. You know, banks do a very good job. Like, I don’t want this to be misunderstood. We’re all part of a common ecosystem. We have a different approach. But, you know, take banks like Wells Fargo, you know, they do a phenomenal job. JPMorgan, phenomenal job. Like, these are great institutions. And we work with them all the time. And so I think we should start with there’s almost like, I don’t know if you’re all familiar with the Mandela effect. This is like the Mandela effect of finance. Which is this just common population collective misimpression, you know, of what’s going on. You know? And then for those who don’t know, the Mandela effect is where there’s these, like, people imagine that the monopoly guy had a monocle he didn’t, or the Pikachu’s tail has a black tip, it doesn’t. You know, there’s just these common misunderstandings and misimaginations. And I can do a list so everyone has one. Fruit of the Loom doesn’t have a cornucopia. So in any case, the point being, like, somehow by just talking about this enough, people have worked themselves into this imaginary world where there’s some big or potential credit problem. And from where we sit, now I’m gonna be a little more parochial, there’s definitely not. You know, when I now look at our book, performance remains extremely strong. You know, we’ve originated over $150 billion in credit over the last decade, and we’re still running at 13 basis point loss rates. And it’ll be higher than that over time. Like, that’s too low. I mean, that’s not the right rate. We don’t suggest it is or should be. And in any given quarter, we have a company that has its challenges. We’ve had every, I will have it every quarter. We’ll have some company that has a challenge. We have 400 of them. But the key is to have very few, when you have them, get a good recovery. And all of that is working, and we are not seeing anything in our portfolio that is thematically problematic. We’re not seeing anything that’s just a shift in overall credit quality or yellow lights or anything like it. We’re still seeing growth. And I’m not trying to be a Pollyanna. Like I said, of course, there are gonna be companies that get in trouble. We’ve had them, and we will have them. And so will our peers, and so will the banks. You know, that’s the nature of being a lender. But the key is, is it thematic? Does it suggest anything greater, or does it even really matter much to the net result when you talk about such small numbers of defaults with, you know, any reasoned recovery? And the answer is it doesn’t. And so I’m not by any measure, I’m trying to be dismissive, but I do think, like, a little bit of a step back because now it’s, like, this daily rhythm of, you know, of, like, everyone saying, what about this thing? What about that thing? You know, as for the items you mentioned, now let me just tie it back again. Now I’ll be parochial again rather than, you know, try to speak so broadly. Actually, the strength of what we do in asset-backed is exactly what you described. The thoroughness with which we tie in with the originators, the quality of the originators, like, just like we do in sponsor finance, we care who the partner is. We care who that originator is. And I have to tell you that there’s a lot of reasons to think that SoFi and PayPal are really well-run companies that aren’t, you know, I hope, god willing, you know, companies like that are not any part of the problems that we’re talking about. And so that is part of selection. Then there’s how you do it. There are tools that can be deployed and we deploy in this business. You know, you do use third-party servicers. That’s a way to have someone else looking. You do field checks. And by the way, if you do field checks in some of these circumstances, you see red flags. If you look at platforms, you see red flags. Like, it is very, a lot of work can be done even to confront fraud. Prevent or at least prevent them from getting into your portfolio. And then once you’re in any credit, while they’re, let’s forget fraud. Let’s just talk about deteriorating performance. Daily data ties. We have a, you know, a whole data science team here. You know, this is, that’s why I get asset-backed, ought to be done by professionals in asset-backed. Part of why we acquired one of the best in the business. Because this is a very different business from what many people in credit do. It does have many, many more line items and flows. So do we do anything new? Well, listen. Anytime there’s a problem anywhere in the financial markets, of course, our job is to instantly go back and look and say, does this suggest there’s anything else we should have been doing or could be doing? And the comforting answer for you will be there, we went back. We looked, and no. There’s nothing that we would, that we missed. There’s nothing we would change. We think we have fantastic controls. That doesn’t mean no one could ever defraud us. Anybody could be defrauded. But I would tell you that, no. We actually looked and, you know, when we study what did happen and study, you know, how we approach it and, frankly, what we even knew about maybe were, you know, what having looked at some of these companies over time, no. I think we feel great about how our process works, but we will always be vigilant about it. But I again, I think everyone is maybe not everyone. I think if you’re a little careful of just kind of this churning and churning and churning, I think the credit system, banks and private lenders included, I think we’re in a really, really healthy place. And last thing I’ll say, if you really, you know, or if someone’s looking around for, oh, you know what? There’s really some problem in the world of credit. Then I would tell you that people should take the flight to quality and get into our BDCs and get into our real estate products, all of which are designed to be defensive and take credit. It’s the senior part of the equity capital stacks. The last point I’ll make, and I don’t mean to drone on about this, but I know it’s a really important topic to the market right now, and I understand that. If you’re actually concerned about the broad credit industry, banks, private lenders included, I mean, people need to take a pause and think about what that means for their equity books. We are the senior parts of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of companies. And by the way, many favorably selected by sector, by sponsor, by capital structure. So if you really are watching this problem, we ought to all collectively turn our attention to, in that case, wildly overvalued equity markets. And we ought to have people moving into credit, not out of credit. And that’s not my opinion that we have wildly overvalued. I think we actually have a really healthy economy and a really healthy ecosystem. And last, I see it with our portfolio. We continue to see great strength. Alex Blostein: Great. Thanks for all the background there, Marc. Marc S. Lipschultz: Of course. Thank you, Alex. Operator: The next question comes from Chris Kotowski with Oppenheimer. Your line is open. Chris Kotowski: Yeah. Good morning, and thank you. So I’m trying to think about going back to the data center financing space and trying to think about how when we see these, you know, press reports about financings, how to translate it into what it means for your AUM and fee-paying AUM, you know, when, where, and how much. So, you know, thinking about Hyperion, for example, the reports I saw were that you put in about $2.5 billion of equity. There is $27 billion of debt, and that the lease term is going to $20.49. So three-part question then. One, I assume what’s AUM for you is the $2.5 billion, not the $27 billion. Two, I assume that $2.5 billion is primarily spoken by Net Lease six. Or by Net Lease six and Infra three. And as such, it would already be in the fee-paying AUM, but it would explain why you’re coming back to market so soon. And then thirdly, does this stay fee-paying AUM for you until 2049? Or are there step downs before then? Marc S. Lipschultz: Yeah. So a few things, then Alan and I will cover both parts of this. So our investment in Meta’s equity is roughly $3 billion. Just to use the right number between us. That is deployed by us over time. Into and therefore, to, I think, the point you raised, it’s commitments today that fund over time. But it’s a bill, therefore a use of capital. We have several strategies, one of the hallmarks of Blue Owl Capital Inc. has been this drive to make sure that individual investors and institutions get treated as true peers. And so, you know, we have multiple vehicles depending on how you choose to participate. That, well, have a strategy that will participate in this product. And so while $3 billion is a gigantic number, right, remember, we have multiple strategies that participate in that. So you said you named two of them very much correctly. Our net lease product for sure is a relevant piece. Our digital infrastructure is the lead horse, if you will. Right? This is an example of a digital infrastructure originated product. Which, by the way, wouldn’t have if we didn’t have IPI. Which therefore benefits the net lease fund. Back to our point, remember, net lease is participated. Oh, by the way, net lease is where we originated Oracle. So that can be a benefit for digital infrastructure. So, you know, these aren’t coincidental combinations. Then, and very importantly, we have our O Rent, triple net lease product, and our now ODIT, are the digital infrastructure trust. And those are the wealth access channels. Those participate. So, you know, it isn’t a matter of, I wonder if I picked the right fund. It’s really did I pick the right firm. Investors picked the right firm. And so we have, you know, homes for that equity. And it’s great equity. So that’s really how we approach it. And then just to close out your point, yes, there will be gaps between the time we commit and the time we deploy. So that does, in part, explain if people are trying to reconcile drawdown to when we’ll be back in market, you know, obviously, once we commit to Meta, whether we funded it, you know, today or two years from now, I mean, you have to have that money on hand. As for assets under management, well, of course, it depends on the vehicle. But it is the case that within a perpetual product, you know, you’re talking about long periods of time, about twenty-something years. But yeah, that asset could just stay there, could stay there forever. I mean, in that sense of the word, twenty plus years. So we would get, you know, paid to do so. That, again, is the beauty of matching capital structure to asset. Now in our funds, it won’t stay forever. Right? In our funds, like our real estate funds, we will often buy and then we’ll sell at nice premiums. You know, the results. And in fact, that’s kind of a thing we’re talking just the other day, actually. Like, our real estate product, so you want to invest in real estate, and you want to make, you know, well risk-managed returns, you know, you look at our, we’ve now fully invested and exited our first three real estate funds. And as a 24% net IRR, doing business with IG companies. I, you know, and that has to do with the difference between the running, you know, kind of double-digit hold forever kinds of returns to, you know, if you buy, if you create things at seven and eights, and if you want to, sell some of them at five to sixes, you know, you generate very high IRR. So the beauty is we have the ability to do all of the above. And whoever joins us, they can pick their entry path and participate in this digital transformation. Chris Kotowski: Okay. Thank you. That’s it for me. Marc S. Lipschultz: Thanks, Chris. Operator: The next question comes from Brian Bedell with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open. Brian Bedell: Great, thanks. Thanks, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Maybe just continuing on that line of that question, just extending that to maybe tying it back to some comments you made earlier in the call, Marc, about the supply of capital for digital infrastructure versus the deployment opportunities being, you know, very vast over a long period of time. How do you think about sort of the strategy of fundraising to try to match that deployment in the future? I know we have, of course, IPI four coming up and, you know, the real estate seven still in the market. But as we think, as you think about that timeline over the next one to two and even three years, in terms of trying to match that demand if you think that’s still going to be there. What are the strategies, either launch new funds or, you know, or use the retail markets maybe as a, you know, as a more major fundraiser for those projects? Marc S. Lipschultz: Yeah. So I look. I think, based on what I had mentioned, and I appreciate the question. Look. We have great homes for a lot of capital. And by the way, we’re all in very creative approaches also on top of what I’m gonna describe. But we have four entry points that, you know, allow you to participate in this digital transformation depending on exactly what assets you want. And what type of structure you want. And that’s like, again, this is very driven around meeting our investors where they live. So I’m not gonna repeat it all, but we have our real estate product. As you said, real estate, seven in the market. Real estate seven is a diversified triple net lease product that owns a variety of different kinds of real estate projects with really strong tenants and fifteen, twenty-year leases. I think we’re running in our product right now a close to an eight average cap in those real estate products. We have a long history of stability and great results, and that’s a great institutional entry into real estate. In fact, if you’re doing real estate, I find it a little hard for us to see why that wouldn’t be the way you’d wanna do real estate, you know, period. Without stopping there. Now if you want a vertical exposure into the data centers, which is this, you know, moment in time generational and, we think, opportunity. I think, by the way, has years to run. Again, just go read the headlines. Everyone keeps announcing bigger numbers, not smaller numbers. And they’re mind-bending numbers. Then we have our digital infrastructure business where, once again, you know, we have an unparalleled history. We’ve done over 100 different data centers. I think today, have already have or are building 10 gigawatts, and I know that’s not like, an intuitive term. But if you think about a gigawatt is the amount of power that a typical, you know, sizable city in America consumes. So, you know, when you think about it, we’re talking about, right now, we have built or are building 10 cities worth of data center capability. And, of course, that’s a fraction of the market. So you can participate in, and those are both drawdown funds. So if you are comfortable and like that structure, you’ll be in a drawdown fund. It obviously, therefore, means it’s more about money going in and ultimately cycling back out. But it’s drawdown, and it has, you know, all the positive and negative attributes of that structure. The exact parallel to that is you can participate in O Rent, which is obviously our continuously offered version, allows you to participate in triple net leased assets. And each one, you know, has a slight nuance in the kinds of projects. One is built more for hold and collecting yields. One is built more for sort of that drawdown and ultimate exit. But they’re participating in the same origination engine. You can participate there. And then on the digital infrastructure side, yes, individual, if you prefer to have the semi-liquid option, you can get your yields and then come and redeem the capital, seek redemption on a quarterly basis, then you come into ODIT. So if I put those four together, we have the horizontal real estate solution and the vertical data center solution. We have the drawdown entry point and the continuously offered semi-liquid entry point. So I think we have everything you need, and we welcome anybody anywhere. QIA is anchoring and coming into the continuously offered product. So I even think this idea that people like it is an institutional product. It is, we’ve never ascribed that, but now more than ever, that isn’t the right way to think about it. It’s about creating structures and matching them to people’s preferences, about the kinds of assets and access to capital and holds and the like that they have in mind. So QIA, you know, is in ODIN. So that’s really how we’ve laid out our system. We don’t have as many products as most people. We won’t have as many products as most. We are open to, of course, doing SMAs and customized solutions. But, you know, we’re really trying to make sure we have the right entry point and that they’re all scaled. Brian Bedell: So you think the fundraising for those products can accelerate given the deployment opportunities? I guess that’s what’s sort of the punch line of the overall question. Marc S. Lipschultz: Oh, yes. I think we’ll see. We’ll continue to, you know, our target for real estate seven, remember, at $7.5 billion, and that’s triple what it was two funds ago. Right? So they are scaling. And scaling to translate ever better market for us to deploy. Digital infra, you know, already was a gigantic step up fund three from fund two. We don’t have a target, obviously, for fund four yet. So those will scale, but then the continuously offered, of course, on the ones that people can really, you know, they can participate tomorrow in these assets. And, of course, that, therefore, is a highly flexible way to introduce capital, you know, into this, you know, accelerating demand. Alan Jay Kirshenbaum: I would only add to that it’s not just the supply that’s driving the demand. It’s the amazing risk-adjusted returns that we’re seeing when we make these investments that are driving the investor demand. This is a generational opportunity that we’re seeing. And I think that’s a big part of what’s driving the demand on the investor side. Brian Bedell: That’s all great color. Thank you so much, guys. Marc S. Lipschultz: Thanks, Brian. Operator: The next question comes from Wilma Burdis with Raymond James. Your line is open. Wilma Burdis: We can’t hear you. Operator: Wilma, you’re ready. Wilma back. Marc S. Lipschultz: Put Wilma back in the queue and just go to… Operator: This will conclude the Q&A session. I’ll turn the call to Marc Lipschultz for closing remarks. Marc S. Lipschultz: Great. Thank you very much. You know, look, I think we covered a lot of ground, and, you know, we are trying to figure out the right way to balance the sort of bigger picture with the results, but I’ll tell you that it was a great quarter. We’re really happy with, most importantly, you know, the performance of the products, which in turn leads to, importantly, great performance at the Blue Owl Capital Inc. level. Bang on track, you know, with durability and predictability. We’re feeling very good that we skated to where, you know, the puck has gone, and we’ll continue to do that. We’ll always be vigilant. Don’t take, you know, anything away from the fact that we understand people and we do too. We always are on the lookout. But sitting here today, we know, we love the position, and we’re quite positive about the future ahead for both Blue Owl Capital Inc. and our Blue Owl Capital Inc. products. So we appreciate your time, and we will keep executing. We’ll keep communicating. Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect. Ever feel like you missed the boat in buying the most successful stocks? Then you’ll want to hear this. On rare occasions, our expert team of analysts issues a “Double Down” stock recommendation for companies that they think are about to pop. If you’re worried you’ve already missed your chance to invest, now is the best time to buy before it’s too late. 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Please see our Terms and Conditions for additional details, including our Obligatory Capitalized Disclaimers of Liability. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Blue Owl (OWL) Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript was originally published by The Motley Fool
已发布: 2025-11-01 21:15:00
