Steve Schwarzman is having a very good year.

Blackstone Group LP, the private equity firm he co-founded in 1985, sidestepped much of the fallout from slumping oil prices that hit competitors. Since last year, it’s been able to collect performance fees at an accelerated rate from a buyout fund started just before the financial crisis.

Its real estate unit, already the biggest of its kind, has raised almost $15 billion in just four months for a new fund. Last week, it led a deal to buy $23 billion in assets from General Electric Co., the largest real estate transaction since the crisis.

The moves highlight Blackstone’s dominance in alternative asset management, a position the New York-based company may further cement when it publishes first-quarter earnings April 16. Analysts expect the firm to report a 40 percent jump in economic net income to $1.14 billion, according to the average of 11 estimates in a Bloomberg survey. Forecasts for Blackstone’s major publicly traded rivals -- KKR & Co., Carlyle Group LP and Apollo Global Management LLC -- are for falling profit.

Blackstone “has massive scale, an informational advantage and deeper pockets” than peers, said Stephen Ellis, an analyst with Morningstar Inc. in Chicago. “There may be softness in private equity, but real estate is going gangbusters.”

Blackstone has long been the biggest manager of alternative assets, in part because it diversified more successfully than its peers into asset classes such as real estate and hedge funds.

$300 Billion

“The others are definitely weighted toward one niche or another,” Ellis said in a telephone interview. “Apollo is weighted towards credit, while Carlyle and KKR are more weighted toward private equity.”

Assets under management at Blackstone were at $290 billion at the end of last year, almost $100 billion more than the closest competitor, Carlyle, and could soon surpass $300 billion. Its market capitalization, at $46.7 billion, exceeds the combined value of Carlyle, KKR, Apollo and Fortress Investment Group LLC.

Blackstone’s shares have rallied 21 percent this year as most of its peers have declined. KKR is down 1.2 percent, Apollo has lost 7 percent. Carlyle has gained 3 percent.

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