Highlights
- Nadeem Meghji, 46, Blackstone's global head of real estate, departing at year-end after 18 years at the firm.
- His family were among those expelled from East Africa in the 1970s before settling in Canada.
- Blackstone is one of Britain's biggest foreign investors, with a pledged £100 billion UK spend over the next decade
NADEEM MEGHJI, the global head of real estate at Blackstone, one of Britain's largest foreign investors, is departing the world's largest alternative asset manager, the company confirmed.
Meghji, 46, brings a distinctive south Asian heritage to his high-profile Wall Street career. Born and raised in Vancouver, he is a first-generation Canadian whose parents emigrated from East Africa in the 1970s, after their community was largely expelled from the region — a reference to the mass expulsion of South Asians from countries like Uganda under Idi Amin in that era.
His family's journey traces a path common to many East African Asians: originally from India, settled for generations in East Africa, before eventually resettling in the West.
Meghji moved from Canada to the US in 1998 to attend Columbia University, where he earned a degree in electrical engineering, later adding a law degree from Harvard Law School and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
The UK stake in his departure
Blackstone's UK footprint makes Meghji's exit significant well beyond Wall Street. The New York-based firm manages more than $1.3 trillion in assets globally and has built a substantial British presence, particularly in leisure and property, alongside its decade-long £100 billion UK investment commitment.
As global head of real estate, Meghji oversaw a $608 billion portfolio that included these UK holdings, meaning his successors inherit direct responsibility for one of the largest pools of foreign capital in British real estate.
Meghji is set to leave at the end of the year, with Blackstone reverting to a joint leadership structure it previously used with Meghji and Kathleen McCarthy, who exited in late 2025.
David Levine, who heads Blackstone's real estate group in the Americas and has been at the firm for 16 years, and Giovanni Cutaia, president of Blackstone real estate with 12 years at the company, will jointly take over the global unit.
A career built at Blackstone
Meghji joined Blackstone in 2008 after working as an associate at the Lionstone Group. He rose to head of real estate in the Americas by 2017, before being promoted to global co-head of real estate in 2024 alongside McCarthy.
Over his tenure, he played a leadership role in several of Blackstone's largest acquisitions, including Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village, BioMed Realty Trust, and Brixmor Property Group, and helped lead the firm's expansion into apartments, life science offices and affordable housing.
In a memo reported by Bloomberg, Blackstone president Jon Gray and chief executive Stephen Schwarzman said Meghji "plans to take some time with his young family before seeking new pursuits," adding that real estate "presents one of the most compelling investment environments we have seen in years."
Meghji's departure adds to a string of senior departures from Blackstone's real estate arm, including roughly a dozen senior managing directors over the past three-plus years, and follows McCarthy's exit less than a year ago.
The reshuffle comes as Blackstone navigates turbulence in private credit, having capped withdrawals from its private credit fund this summer amid investor concerns over transparency, valuations, defaults and elevated interest rates.
Despite the churn at the top, Blackstone's real estate arm remains among the largest in the world, with its portfolio valued at over $600 billion.
The firm closed a record $30.4bn global real estate fund in 2023, and its Real Estate Income Trust has recently shown signs of recovery, posting an 11 per cent net return over the past year and its first positive quarterly net inflow in four years.
