Economic Net Income for the First Quarter 2008 was a Loss of $(93.6) million reflecting a reduction in carrying value of investments.

GAAP Net Loss of $(246.7) million reflecting transaction related (including non-cash charges of $940.0 million) costs of $952.5 million offset by Non-Controlling Interests of $799.4 million.

Record Assets Under Management of $113.53 billion, a 37% increase from $83.14 billion a year ago.

GSO acquisition closed March 3, 2008, augmenting debt business expansion.

Blackstone declares a quarterly distribution of $0.30 per common unit and reaffirms priority distributions to public common unitholders of $1.20 per year through 2009, to be paid quarterly.

The Blackstone Group L.P. (NYSE: BX) today reported its first quarter 2008 results.

For the quarter ended March 31, 2008, Total Net Reportable Segment Revenues were $32.3 million as compared to Total Pro Forma Adjusted Reportable Segment Revenues of $1.23 billion in 2007. Declines in all business segments drove the year-over-year decrease in revenues.

Economic Net Income for the quarter ended March 31, 2008 was a loss of $(93.6) million as compared to Pro Forma Adjusted Economic Net Income of $957.8 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2007.

For the quarter ended March 31, 2008, GAAP Revenues totaled $68.5 million, GAAP Other Income (Loss) totaled $(215.6) million, GAAP Expenses (including non-cash transactional charges of $940.0 million) totaled $1.10 billion, GAAP Income (Loss) Before Non-Controlling Interests and Provision for Income Taxes was $(1.25) billion and GAAP Net Income (Loss) Before Provision for Taxes totaled $(246.7) million. The vesting of equity awards granted at the time of the IPO contributed significantly to the GAAP loss. For the quarter ended March 31, 2007, GAAP revenues totaled $1.23 billion, GAAP Other Income totaled $3.04 billion, GAAP Expenses totaled $172.2 million, GAAP Income (Loss) Before Non-Controlling Interests and Provision for Income Taxes was $4.09 billion, and GAAP Net Income Before Provision for Taxes totaled $1.15 billion. A significant amount of equity interests held by senior managing directors and other employees is subject to future vesting, minimum retained ownership interests and transfer restrictions. As a result of the future vesting, Blackstone has and will continue to show significant non-cash compensation charges associated with these equity interests over their respective service periods. These non-cash charges, which arose in 2007 in connection with the reorganization and the initial public offering, are likely to result in GAAP net losses for the next five years depending upon the applicable service periods or useful lives, but will never have any impact on cash earnings.

In connection with the initial public offering of the common units of The Blackstone Group L.P. (the publicly traded partnership), Blackstone effected a reorganization on June 18, 2007, which affects the comparison of the current year's periods with those of the prior years. Blackstone's business was historically conducted through a large number of entities as to which there was no single holding entity. Accordingly, operating results for the 2007 period presented are for the respective consolidated and combined entities.

Fixed income and equity markets accelerated their declines in the first quarter of 2008, with U.S., European and Asian equity indices down significantly and credit spreads substantially wider. Reduced liquidity, which was evident in the second half of 2007, also accelerated in the first quarter of 2008. Lenders severely restricted new commitments to senior loans and high yield debt, which limited industry-wide leveraged acquisition activity levels in both corporate and real estate markets. Recently announced private equity-led acquisitions have mostly been smaller in size and global completed mergers and acquisition activity declined. The duration of current economic conditions is unknown.

Stephen A. Schwarzman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Blackstone said: “Turbulent markets throughout the world persisted in the first quarter, affecting virtually all asset pricing across credit and equity markets. This was both good and bad for us. On the one hand, it meant lower carrying values of some of our investments in the short term and restricted our disposition activity. On the other hand, purchase prices for new deals declined, opening up many interesting investment possibilities. Credit market dislocation, while limiting availability of debt for large leveraged transactions, has also created attractive debt investment opportunities, particularly in leveraged loans. Our well-timed GSO acquisition dramatically expanded our efforts in this area. Despite the challenges presented by a slowing global economy, overall our portfolio companies and real estate investments continued to perform well. Our balance sheet remains healthy, and our long-term contractual management fees position us well to increase market share.”

About The Blackstone Group

The Blackstone Group L.P. is a leading global alternative asset manager and provider of financial advisory services. Its alternative asset management businesses include the management of corporate private equity funds, real estate funds, funds of hedge funds, debt funds (including leveraged lending funds), collateralized loan obligation (“CLO”) vehicles, proprietary hedge funds and closed-end mutual funds. The Blackstone Group also provides various financial advisory services, including corporate and mergers and acquisitions advisory, restructuring and reorganization advisory and fund placement services. Further information is available at http://ir.blackstone.com/.