Blackstone provided further evidence of the strain on private equity and hedge fund groups when it revealed on Thursday it had suffered a $340m net loss for its third quarter, triple the level a year ago.

Hit by the turmoil in financial markets and the slowdown in the real economy, Blackstone admitted that performance fees on the assets its manages had dried up and that the carrying value of its three main portfolios of private equity, real estate and hedge funds had dropped between 7.5 per cent and 10 per cent.