Blackstone Promotes Chris Heady to APAC Chairman

The world’s largest alternative asset firm chose a new APAC chief this week, as Christopher Heady was named chairman of Blackstone’s Asia Pacific businesses.

Heady takes over the top role for Blackstone in the region after previously serving as the private equity giant’s head of Asia real estate. Heady, who has been with Blackstone since 2000, fills a top leadership role for Asia which has been vacant since the firm’s former Asia chief, Michael Chae, returned to the US in 2014.

Heady’s appointment comes as Blackstone steps up its role both as an investor in Asia, and as a partner for Asian companies investing overseas.

“…there is a clear trend that your traditional Western investors are probably under-allocated to Asia. And, in a sense, Asian investors are probably underallocated and will want to diversify into the Western economies. I think that trend is just playing out,” Heady told UK’s Estates Gazette in an interview published last week.

The US private equity firm has shown an increased interest in China recently as it continues to improve its ties to mainland companies. Blackstone’s Hilton Hotel Group sold the Waldorf Astoria to China’s Anbang Insurance for $1.95 billion in 2014, and then sold Strategic Hotels and Resorts to Anbang last month for $6.5 billion.

Heady began working in Blackstone’s Asia headquarters in Hong Kong in 2007, after previously serving with the firm in New York and London, following earlier roles with Morgan Stanley.

In Asia Heady will be directing a growing team for Blackstone, which now has six offices in the region, staffed by 70 staffers in Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo, Sydney and Singapore.

According to a statement from Blackstone, Daisuke Kitta was also promoted to head the company’s Japan operations, after previously being in charge of real estate for Japan at Blackstone.

Blackstone recruited Morgan Stanley Real Estate Investing’s Chris Tynan last November to head up its Australian real estate division, and in July brought on board Zhang Liping from Credit Suisse Group to serve as its chairman for Greater China.

Blackstone’s global chairman, Stephen A Schwarzman in 2013 set up a $300 million scholarship fund with Beijing’s Tsinghua University. The Schwarzman Scholars program was later expanded after receiving generous support from some top level Chinese companies, including Anbang.