Fund Managers

Blue Owl reaches over $62bn in AUM in strong Q2 earnings

The firm, which was formed earlier this year, has been investing prolifically into the direct lending market.

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Alternative asset manager Blue Owl Capital reported a strong second quarter in its earnings call last week.

The New York-based fund manager has reached $62.4 billion of assets under management, an eight percent increase since the previous quarter, the firm said.

“We are pleased to report Blue Owl’s strong financial results for the second quarter of 2021,” chief executive, Doug Ostrover, said in a news release. “We continued to deploy capital at a robust pace, including a record $5.1 billion of gross deployment in direct lending during the quarter, and momentum remains high across the Blue Owl platform.”

The firm’s adjusted fee-related earnings were $130.1 million, or $0.10 per adjusted share, for the second quarter, according to its financial report.

“We’re not on a hamster wheel for raising capital,” Blue Owl chief financial officer Alan Kirshenbaum told Private Debt Investor, explaining that 97 percent of the firm’s management fees came from permanent capital. “It’s like a layer cake for our fundraising,” he said.

“We think of ourselves as having a 3.0 business model where we pick and choose the best attributes of an asset manager model,” said Kirshenbaum. “One of those is having 100 percent FRE [fee-related earnings],” he said of Blue Owl’s earnings this quarter. “And because of this and our permanent capital, we have very high visibility into earnings.”

Blue Owl also reported a GAAP net loss of more than $397 million or -$1.21 per basic and -$1.23 per diluted Class A share, for the second quarter this year.

In July, the firm closed its inaugural Owl Rock Opportunistic Fund at $2 billion. The fund focuses on leading directly originated investments across a broad range of debt and equity instruments such as rescue financings, recapitalisations, wedge capital, DIP loans and broken syndications, according to a news release.

Blue Owl launched in May after alternative asset managers Owl Rock Capital Group and Neuberger Berman’s Dyal Capital Partners merged with Altimar Acquisition Corporation, a special purpose acquisition company. It trades as OWL on the New York Stock Exchange.