Blackstone Group LP’s Jon Gray says the rise in volatility has presented opportunities as the prices of some asset classes like energy have dropped.

“Lots of assets have been repriced, this could be a more interesting investing” environment going forward, Blackstone’s president said at Bloomberg’s The Year Ahead summit in New York Wednesday.

Despite the decline in prices, Gray expects the U.S. economy to continue to grow next year.

“It is possible rising rates slow things down,” he said. The normal signs of what causes a recession -- banks leveraging up, commercial construction out of hand -- aren’t present. “I’d be willing to bet no recession” in 2019.

Blackstone, which has about $457 billion under management, expects to raise its biggest real estate fund ever. Earlier this month, Gray told Bloomberg that deploying capital later in the economic cycle is the single biggest issue for any investment firm in 2019.

Here are more highlights from the interview:

Europe

Gray said growth in Europe is challenged, which means interest rates are likely to stay lower. In the last few weeks, he said, Blackstone announced two large deals in the U.K., where the government is struggling with Brexit.

“In both cases we felt we were able to price in a lower growth environment,” Gray said.

Private Equity

Gray said the best buyout opportunities in public markets are for $3 billion to $20 billion companies because there is less competition compared with the market for mid-sized firms.

“The volatility, prices coming down is a bit helpful for us as we are looking for businesses,” Gray said.

Blackstone has more exposure to Asia and to life sciences, even though growth equity has a lot of high priced companies, he said.

This article was provided by Bloomberg News.