Blackstone Agrees to Acquire Harvest Fund Advisors LLC

Blackstone today announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Harvest Fund Advisors LLC (“Harvest”), an independent investment management firm with over $10 billion in assets under management. Harvest primarily invests capital raised from institutional investors in separately managed accounts and pooled vehicles, investing in public master limited partnerships (MLPs) holding U.S. midstream energy assets. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Tony James, President and Chief Operating Officer of Blackstone, said, “Harvest is a leader in bringing institutional investors to the MLP asset class. It has generated superior long-term results for its investors. Harvest’s expertise in this area will complement our extensive energy investing activities across Blackstone. We look forward to partnering with Harvest to continue growing its business.”

Dwight Scott, a Senior Managing Director of Blackstone and President of GSO, said, “We see significant growth and opportunity in the MLP markets today, especially in the continued evolution towards broader institutional ownership. The Harvest team leads the way in this evolution and has a unique and successful approach to investing in this often misunderstood asset class. We have known the team for several years and have seen their creative approach to the sector first hand. We are excited to have Eric and his partners as part of Blackstone.”

Eric Conklin, Managing Partner of Harvest, added, “We are thrilled to join Blackstone and work with them to continue building on Harvest’s strong track record of success. Moving forward, we believe there are a number of opportunities to partner with Blackstone to further our goal of building critical midstream energy assets and consequently driving value creation for our investors, versus waiting for the market to correct a mispricing in an undervalued asset class.”

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close during the fourth quarter of 2017.