Nomura Value Fund, a series of Delaware Group Equity Funds II on Blackstone Inc.

The fund initiated Blackstone with the shares trading near five-year-low valuation levels. It views Blackstone’s scale as the world’s largest alternatives asset manager as an attractive long-term franchise characteristic. The team believes the depressed valuation creates favorable long-term risk-reward even though investors are concerned about possible AI disruption in the company’s software lending portfolio. The investment case is therefore a value opportunity created by a near-term disruption narrative that the fund believes is over-discounted.