Blackstone is set to start granting stock to its portfolio companies’ employees, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The private equity giant’s plans to give equity to workers at most of the large US-based businesses it buys are expected to be announced at a conference this week.
Blackstone plans to start the initiative by giving shares to workers at Copeland, a climate-tech company it bought from Emerson Electric last year for $14 billion, per the Journal.
The investment firm employs about 700,000 people across the 230 companies it owns globally. Blackstone shares are down 3% this year, but have risen more than 50% over the past 12 months leaving it worth just over $150 billion at Tuesday’s closing bell.
Other private equity titans have made similar moves in recent years.
KKR started awarding shares to employees at its industrial businesses in 2011 and later broadened the program to cover workers at all of its US-based portfolio companies.
In April 2022, KKR’s global cohead of private equity Pete Stavros launched Ownership Works, a nonprofit that seeks to promote shared ownership. Apollo, Ares, and Silver Lake are among the 19 firms that have backed the program.
The private equity titans see granting shares to rank-and-file employees as part of an effort to reduce income inequality, at a time when the industry’s massive profits have come under fire from lawmakers, including senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
When Ownership Works launched two years ago, it set the goal of generating $20 billion in wealth for low and middle-income employees over the following decade.
