With over 1 trillion dollars in assets under management, Blackstone is by far the largest private equity firm in the world. The investment company is headquartered in New York City. And there, a man from the Rhineland has risen to the top ranks.

Since January, Martin Brand has been leading the US firm’s global private equity business – the core operation involving buyout funds for corporate investments. As a Senior Managing Director, the 50-year-old oversees assets under management totaling 371 billion dollars.

Brand’s family comes from Bocholt, and he grew up in Neuss. His father is an architect, his mother an elementary school teacher. Numbers fascinated him early on. He won the national mathematics competition for students from all over Germany. He then studied mathematics and computer science at Oxford (First Class Honours), and also earned an MBA from Harvard Business School. From there, he started his career in the derivatives department at Goldman Sachs, spent a year at McKinsey, before Blackstone recruited him.

Brand has been living in New York since 2005. He is not only a dealmaker but also a family man. With his wife, he has three children: Alfie (6), Romy (4), and Ferdie (2). Another child is on the way. Visits to Germany have been rare, but that is about to change: „I will now be in Germany more often“, Brand told Börsen-Zeitung on the sidelines of the SuperReturn conference in Berlin. „We are very bullish on Germany. It’s good that there is now a capable government. A push for deregulation is good for Germany and will unleash intellectual capital.“

Brand’s career in the US has advanced rapidly. He was first given responsibility for tech investments, then got promoted to head of the private equity division in the US in 2021. Among the deals Brand is particularly known for is the 20 billion dollars Refinitiv transaction. In 2018, Blackstone acquired a majority stake (55%) in the data services provider from Thomson Reuters. In 2019, Blackstone sold the stake at a significant profit to the London Stock Exchange Group. Also within Brand’s responsibility was the investment in the Norwegian classifieds giant Adevinta, which also conducts much business in Germany.

„The turbulence in relations with the US government may even bring new momentum“, Brand comments with regard to Germany. „The federal government’s infrastructure and defence package makes investments in Germany more attractive. That is fuelling a boom in defence spending. We are ready to invest in companies involved in this sector.“

When Brand answers a question, he often seems to hesitate briefly. Perhaps he wants to speak carefully. Or maybe he’s just searching for the right words in his mother tongue. He often says his colleagues have wanted to send him into German-language negotiations during deals, which he wasn't really comfortable with.

But now he is increasingly turning his focus back to Germany: „The whole world is becoming more nationalistic and uncertain“, notes Brand. „Relaxing the debt brake was the right decision. That not only creates opportunities in the defence secto,r but also supports Europe’s digital sovereignty.“ Blackstone plans to invest both in data centres in Germany and in companies benefiting from artificial intelligence.

„We even use artificial intelligence in our own company’s investment committee“, reveals Brand. „We trained it on protocols from previous meetings, and let it ask questions. Sometimes the questions sound nonsensical but sometimes they raise completely new and important perspectives.“

Brand has often impressed his colleagues with his helpfulness and humour. „If a flight is canceled and you’re stuck at the airport, Martin is the person who makes it easiest to bear“, says a senior manager from the Spanish-German private equity firm Altamar CAM. He often shares interesting books he’s currently reading. At the moment, Brand is reading The Modern Mind by Peter Watson, an intellectual history of the 20th-century. His youngest son, however, prefers Good Night, Good Night, Construction Site.