Blackstone Tactical Opportunities Announces Leadership Transition

Chris James Appointed Global Head of Tac Opps, David Blitzer to Transition to Chairman

Jas Khaira to be Head of Tac Opps Americas, Qasim Abbas to be Head of Tac Opps International

November 5, 2024, New York – Blackstone (NYSE: BX) announced today that Chris James – currently Chief Operating Officer (COO) and a founding member of Blackstone Tactical Opportunities (“Tac Opps”), with nearly two decades of experience at Blackstone – will become Global Head of Tac Opps. He will succeed David Blitzer, who will transition to chairman of the business at year end. Blackstone also today announced the elevation of two long-time senior Tac Opps partners to expanded leadership roles for the business. Jas Khaira will be Head of Tactical Opportunities Americas and Qasim Abbas will be Head of Tactical Opportunities International.

Blackstone launched its Tactical Opportunities platform in 2012 – a strategy the firm pioneered – to invest across the landscape of private investment opportunities outside of traditional private equity and private credit. Today, Tac Opps has $37 billion of assets under management and is the largest structured capital solutions platform in the world. The Tac Opps team invests globally across asset classes, industries, and geographies, seeking to deliver compelling risk-adjusted returns by identifying and executing on attractive, differentiated investment opportunities.

Steve Schwarzman, Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Blackstone, and Jon Gray, President & COO of Blackstone, said: “Chris James is the ideal choice to lead Tac Opps. He helped found the business and has run it day-to-day alongside David since its inception – playing an integral role in its success. Tac Opps is thriving in the current environment and we are confident CJ, Jas, and Qasim will continue its strong momentum. We are also quite pleased that David – who has done a world-class job building the Tac Opps franchise from scratch – will continue as chairman of the business.”

Chris James said: “I am excited to take on this new position and, alongside my partners Qasim and Jas, lead the deeply talented Tactical Opportunities team. We believe Tac Opps’ differentiated platform – with scale and flexible capital that benefits from the vast intellectual capital across Blackstone – is incredibly well positioned to continue delivering highly compelling opportunities for our investors.”

David Blitzer said: “We are pleased to have three of our senior partners take on these new positions to further the growth and success of the business – illustrating the breadth and strength of the talent on our team. CJ, Jas, and Qasim have been part of Tac Opps since the beginning and are perfectly positioned to continue moving it forward to even greater heights.”

In additional to his role as COO of Tac Opps, Mr. James has also been instrumental in the launching several new businesses at Blackstone including its insurance platform, growth investing platform, and private equity strategy for individual investors. Prior to Tactical Opportunities in 2012, Mr. James had been involved in the execution of Blackstone strategic initiatives, including the firm’s IPO, and its investments in GSO (now Blackstone Credit and Insurance, “BXCI”) and Strategic Partners.

Mr. Abbas currently leads Tac Opps’ European business and joined Blackstone in 2012. Mr. Khaira has been at Blackstone for two decades and leads Tac Opps digital infrastructure investments. Both Mr. Abbas and Mr. Khaira are founding members of Tac Opps.

Last year, Blackstone announced the record close of Blackstone Tactical Opportunities Fund IV (“BTO IV”). Including other single-investor vehicles pursuing the same strategy, the combined BTO IV platform is currently expected to have nearly $10 billion of new capital in its fourth fundraising vintage. This is substantially higher than the BTO III platform and the largest-ever vintage of its kind. Recent investments in BTO IV include CoreWeave, a specialized provider of critical cloud infrastructure pioneering the AI revolution, and the music royalty platform Hipgnosis.

About Blackstone
Blackstone is the world’s largest alternative asset manager. We seek to deliver compelling returns for institutional and individual investors by strengthening the companies in which we invest. Our more than $1.1 trillion in assets under management include global investment strategies focused on real estate, private equity, infrastructure, life sciences, growth equity, credit, real assets, secondaries and hedge funds. Further information is available at www.blackstone.com. Follow @blackstone on LinkedIn, X (Twitter), and Instagram.  

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Matt Anderson
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