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Business

Rivals fear edge for Blackstone via analytics firm investment

By
Claire Atkinson
Published Jan. 27, 2015, 1:14 a.m. ET

Blackstone’s investment in real-estate analytics firm VTS isn’t going down well with some in the business.

VTS, formerly View The Space, is a platform for providing commercial office owners and their brokers with real-time access to the latest offers on available space.

Earlier this month, Blackstone spent $3.3 million to buy a stake in the 3-year-old company, which is on track to hold data on some 2 billion square feet by year’s end.

Blackstone is the world’s biggest real-estate investor, and some fear the company’s involvement in the fast-growth data-tracking business will mean such services will become tailored to its specific interests rather than the industry’s.

VTS rivals include Hightower and CoStar, both also in the business of cloud-based deal flow.

“I would be nervous about Blackstone seeing my information, and also steering VTS towards their own needs as it develops,” one person in the business with experience using these platforms told The Post.

This person cited the possibility of consolidation in the real-estate data world that would put Blackstone in a position of increased power relative to its rivals in real estate.

“Having anyone like Blackstone put in an investment means they’ll determine how it will grow,” said this person.

Companies in the space have grown rapidly, as landlords and brokers have typically worked off spread sheets filed daily or weekly. With the new data apps, executives are able to see instantly such things as the latest offer on their office space, historical pricing data and who’s toured the property.

Client data isn’t shared across the VTS platform, but the fear is that Blackstone may peek at their information.

Nick Romito, CEO of VTS, responded to critics saying that is completely untrue that Blackstone would get to view any client data. “Our clients own their own data. We can’t aggregate it and we can’t share it, we wouldn’t have a business if that was the case.”

He doubted Blackstone would try to alter the service to suit its own needs. “It’s not something Blackstone wanted to change.”

He also pointed out that rivals CoStar and Hightower also have investors from the industry. CoStar is publicly traded and realty kingpin Josh Kushner backs Hightower. “We are the last ones to get an investment from a real estate investor,” Romito said

Blackstone is set to add their entire inventory to the site, including office, industrial and retail locations, Romito said.