NEW YORK, May 1 Reuters Blackstone Inc on Monday said it had again limited withdrawals from its 70 billion real estate income trust in April as investor redemption requests continued to pile up.

Blackstone said BREIT had received 4.5 billion worth of withdrawal requests in April, but the fund fulfilled only 1.3 billion or 29 of the total redemption requests, the firm said in a letter to investors.

In March, BREIT had also received requests totaling 4.5 billion but it fulfilled just 666 million or 15 of those demands. Redemption requests were 5.3 billion and 3.9 billion in January and February, respectively.

Blackstone has been exercising its right to block investor withdrawals from BREIT since November after requests exceeded a preset 5 of the net asset value of the fund. It has so far paid out 6.2 billion to investors who have been requesting redemptions since November, the firm said.

Reporting by Chibuike Oguh in New York; editing by Jonathan Oatis

Source Reuters