March 16

Blackstone agrees to buy the 2.8-million-sq.-ft. Willis Tower in Chicago, the second-tallest office building in the country, from a partnership including Joseph Chetrit and Joseph Moinian for $1.3 billion.

March 27

Blackstone agrees to buy River North Point, a 1.3-million-sq.-ft. office building in Chicago, for $390 million.

March 30

Blackstone agrees to buy three hotels totaling 2,500 rooms in Orlando, Fla. and Phoenix from a Paulson & Co. consortium for $1.2 billion.

April 10

Blackstone agrees to buy Excel Trust Inc., a shopping center REIT with a 38-property portfolio, for approximately $2 billion.

April 10

Blackstone and Wells Fargo agree to buy most of the assets of GE Capital Real Estate Trust, valued at $23 billion. Blackstone’s share of the loot included $3.3 billion in U.S. equity assets (primarily office buildings on the West Coast and in the Midwest), €1.9 billion in European equity assets (primarily office, logistics and retail properties), $4.2 billion in mortgage loans secured by properties in Mexico and Australia and $4.6 billion in first mortgage loans financed by Wells Fargo in the United States.

June 22

Blackstone agrees to buy the mall and parking garage portion of Sky View Parc, a mixed-use complex in Queens, N.Y. for $400 million form Onex. The mall contains 560,000 sq. ft. of space.

July 22

Blackstone, in a joint venture with Fairstead Capital, agrees to buy 25 Manhattan apartment buildings containing almost 1,000 units from the Caiola family for $700 million.

July 22

Blackstone agrees to buy a real estate portfolio valued at $2.7 billion from Obligo Investment Management AS, a Norwegian institutional investor. The portfolio includes apartment buildings, shopping centers and hotels located in Northern Europe and the United States.

August 21

Blackstone acquires a majority stake in Stearns Holdings, the parent company of Sterns Lending, a non-bank mortgage lender operating nationwide. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

September 3

Blackstone acquires a “significant” equity stake in mortgage insurer PMI Group. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

September 8

Blackstone agrees to buy Strategic Hotels and Resorts Inc. for $3.93 billion. Including debt, the transaction is valued at $6 billion. Strategic owns 18 luxury properties throughout the nation, including hotels in New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco and Miami.

October 8

Blackstone agrees to buy medical office REIT BioMed Realty Trust for $4.8 billion. Including debt, the transaction is valued at $8 billion. BioMed owns and operates approximately 18 million sq. ft. of properties geared toward the life sciences sector located in primary markets, including Boston, Seattle and San Francisco.

October 20

Blackstone, in partnership with Canadian investor Ivanhoe Cambridge, agrees to buy Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, an 80-acre multi-building multifamily complex in New York City, for approximately $5.3 billion.

November 12

Blackstone agrees to purchase $3 billion in real estate fund stakes from pension fund CalPERS. The deal includes 42 funds involving both international and domestic assets.