That US giant Blackstone has become the first private equity firm to manage $US1 trillion – a milestone confirmed in its June quarter earnings results on Thursday night – is remarkable on several levels.

Firstly, there’s the remarkable growth of the firm itself. Blackstone started in 1985 managing $US400,000 in one private equity fund, but now Blackstone sprawls across real estate, credit, infrastructure and hedge fund products. As the company’s president, Jon Gray, told Bloomberg: “It’s not your mother’s and father’s private equity firm.”