A Gubernatorial Candidate’s Close Ties to Blackstone
Regardless of whether she’s New Hampshire’s next governor, Kelly Ayotte is due for a nice payday from working on corporate boards for Blackstone, News Corp, and more.
by Paul Blest, More Perfect Union
A gubernatorial candidate in New Hampshire is coming under scrutiny for her close ties to corporate firms — including the world’s largest corporate landlord.
After former Sen. Kelly Ayotte lost her re-election bid in 2016, she joined the corporate boards at several companies including the investment management firm Blackstone, equipment manufacturer Caterpillar, and the Murdoch-owned media conglomerate News Corp.
She made more than $2.5 million in cash compensation during her second act while serving on the boards of nearly a dozen firms. Now, Ayotte is attempting to re-enter office as the Republican nominee for New Hampshire governor, breaking state campaign spending records this year in a tight race with Joyce Craig, the Democratic former mayor of Manchester.
But with less than two weeks to go before the election, Ayotte remains on the boards of News Corp. and Blackstone, and holds millions in stock options — including shares that aren’t payable until after the inauguration of the next governor, who will succeed Republican Chris Sununu.
News Corp., founded by conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch, is the owner of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, among other properties. Blackstone is an investment management firm that, among many other things, is the largest corporate landlord in the world, owning more than 300,000 single-family homes in the U.S. alone.
Ayotte owned more than more than $1.2 million in News Corp stock as of early October, which are payable in cash on the first trading day following her retirement as a director. She also owns more than $3 million in Blackstone stock, including nearly $300,000 worth of shares that don’t vest until May 2025, according to SEC filings.
Ayotte also stood down from the board of Boston Properties earlier this year, at which point more than 8,000 phantom shares worth nearly $500,000 were converted into stock to be paid out in either a lump sum or annual installments for 10 years.
But it’s Ayotte’s association with Blackstone, where she has served on the board since 2019, which has come under particular scrutiny in New Hampshire.
Blackstone is an investment management firm that is the largest corporate landlord in the world, owning more than 300,000 single-family homes in the U.S. alone. In 2019, the United Nations’ top housing advisor named Blackstone as part of a group of corporate landlords that are “faceless corporations wreaking havoc with tenants’ right to security and contributing to the global housing crisis”— claims the company has denied. The company has wielded political power against tenant-friendly regulations, including lobbying heavily against rent control ballot measures in California in the past decade.
While the company and other institutional investors aren’t the main drivers of the U.S. housing crisis, they are profiting handsomely from it. During the company’s Q3 earnings call last week, Chief Operating Officer Jonathan Gray said that “the combination of lower base rates, lower borrowing spreads, and lower new supply makes the direction of travel quite positive for our real estate business.” Gray also noted that the company has more than doubled its real estate investments through the first nine months of this year compared to the same period in 2023.
Through subsidiaries and partnerships, Blackstone owns several properties in New Hampshire, including student housing near the University of New Hampshire and Dartmouth College. The company also owns an apartment complex in Nashua, New Hampshire. Rent for a two-bedroom apartment in the Granite State has increased more than 30 percent since 2019, according to the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute; in some places, like Nashua, it’s increased more than 50 percent in the same period.
Ayotte’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment Thursday, but has described claims about her work on the Blackstone board as “Democratic lies” spread by “left-wing groups across the nation, some of them funded by George Soros.”
Blackstone CEO and founder Stephen Schwarzman is a prominent Republican donor who contributed millions to former President Donald Trump’s campaign four years ago and, despite initially calling for a “new generation of Republican leaders” before the GOP primary, endorsed him again this year. Ayotte, who backed away from Trump after the release of the Access Hollywood tape in 2016, also endorsed Trump’s third for office this year as she faced a challenge from her right in the gubernatorial primary.
"As you know, we had our differences in 2016,” she told TV station WMUR in April. “But I think as we look at where we are as a country right now, there's no question he's the right choice for the White House.”