How Blackstone Real Estate’s European team uses PRODA for faster, smarter portfolio analysis and insights
Blackstone uses PRODA across their global real estate equity portfolio to improve operational efficiencies based on the standardization and validation of internal data. While Blackstone is leveraging PRODA across all regions, in this case study, we look at how PRODA benefits their teams in UK and Europe.
100% increase in speed
Of submitting, reviewing, and reporting on existing internal rent roll data (i.e. historical leasing details, including, for example, tenant name, prior rents)
50% expansion of internal rent roll data points collected
Across all sectors in Blackstone Real Estate’s European portfolio
100% lease-based assets (4k+) loaded
Into common, standardized, and certified data sets across Blackstone Real Estate’s European portfolio
Ability to transition from a quarterly rent roll submission cycle to a monthly cadence
Due to holistic efficiency gains
Robust improvement of rent roll quality and accuracy
Through the native PRODA data checks, visibility into cross-portfolio data sets, and the reduction of human error
About Blackstone
Blackstone is the world’s largest alternative asset manager, with more than $1 trillion in assets under management. Blackstone’s real estate business is a global leader in real estate investing, with around 12,500 real estate assets worldwide to the value of $586 billion (as of December 31, 2023).
The Challenge
Rent roll data is the critical building block of Blackstone’s performance and valuation analysis. Being able to ingest existing internal data, at scale, in a seamless, rapid, and automated way makes the analytics process more accurate and less time-consuming for all teams involved.
After rigorous testing of numerous tools, it became clear that PRODA stood out as the ultimate solution for our needs. The time-savings and noticeable improvement in data quality we experienced were unparalleled.
PRODA’s innovative approach to data automation and machine-learning technology transformed how we access and analyze our portfolio data, offering us a competitive edge that truly feels like a leap forward in the industry.
Rick Ferrino, Senior Vice President,
Technology and Innovations, Blackstone
The Solution
Streamlining the storing, common modeling, and certification of the firm’s existing internal rent roll data, while increasing data completeness, has realized efficiency gains in Blackstone’s European reporting, and given their teams newfound analytical capabilities.
PRODA’s machine-learning capability means that it recognizes, learns, and remembers formats and patterns in the data, so that data ingestion for new and recurring rent rolls is fully automated and sped up even further. The data ingested into PRODA remains Blackstone’s internal data and is not shared with third parties, including, for example, customers.
PRODA also runs hundreds of quality checks in the background, which helps identify errors and inconsistencies.
PRODA’s AI engine enables the platform to understand and differentiate between rent rolls across different asset classes, languages, formats, and regional specificities, enabling Blackstone Real Estate’s European business to scale and glean insights at a faster rate.
By integrating PRODA’s automated solution, we’ve significantly elevated our capacity to ingest and manage our rent roll data efficiently. This strategic move has empowered our European team to optimize our performance and valuation analysis processes, reinforcing our commitment to delivering exceptional service and insights to our clients.
Daniel Novoa, Managing Director
Real Estate, Blackstone
The Outcome
Blackstone’s European Real Estate business is now twice as fast in their review and validation of existing internal rent roll data while covering more ground and seeing an increase in accuracy.
However, these are just the early-stage benefits: Blackstone has onboarded 100% of their leased assets, comprising hundreds of thousands of individual rent roll lines that are ingested quarterly, with a third of them monthly.
The next stage of benefits highlights efficiencies, increased analysis, and advantageous reporting. Asset management teams in Europe are spending a fraction of the time collecting and sanitizing their rent roll data, providing them with more time to focus on critically questioning its content.
On top of generating standard asset valuation reports from the data in PRODA, Blackstone Real Estate’s European team is also using the data for additional reporting. These include public bond reporting for specific funds, investor regular and ad hoc reporting, rent review profiles, tenant risk and exposure, and an array of proprietary insights.