Blackstone to Shut Mutual Fund After Fidelity Pulls Out

Blackstone Group LP, the asset manager run by Stephen Schwarzman, will shutter a mutual fund that allocates money to hedge fund managers following a large redemption by the vehicle’s main backer, Fidelity Investments.

The Blackstone Alternative Multi-Manager Fund will no longer accept new money and will be liquidated by May 31, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday. The fund’s investment advisor will seek to convert all of its holdings to cash and cash equivalents to meet anticipated redemption requests.

Assets in the fund have shrunk to $629.8 million from $1.2 billion at the end of February. The decline reflects a large redemption by Fidelity, which had put almost $1 billion into the fund in 2013, a person familiar with the matter said last month. At the end of last year, a Fidelity unit owned essentially all of the fund’s shares on behalf of its clients, according to regulatory filings.

Robert Jordan, a senior managing director in Blackstone’s hedge fund solutions group, declined to comment on the liquidation.

Multi-Strategy Fund

The New York-based firm also disclosed a management change at a separate mutual fund that allocates assets to managers who specialize in global macro, quantitative and opportunistic trading strategies, among others. The investment committee with oversight responsibility for the $3.9 billion Blackstone Alternative Multi-Strategy Fund will also handle its day-to-day management, according to a separate filing. Jordan is a member of the oversight committee.