The biggest private equity firm in the world thinks Europe will never grow

At a luncheon hosted by the Wall Street Journal, Blackstone CEO Steven Schwarzman said that his firm is working under the assumption that Europe will never grow.

"Our baked-in assumption is that Europe never grows," Bloomberg quoted Schwarzman as saying, "you have to improve it..."

And by "improve" Schwarzman means making meaningful structural reform, which will require political action and consensus.

You can see why Schwarzman is not so optimistic, then.

This isn't to say Blackstone isn't invested in Europe. It raised $5.7 billion for a European real estate fund, two-thirds of which was committed by October of 2014, according to Bloomberg. Blackstone plans to make money from that investment, not through European growth, but by improving property and raising rents.

For more on this, head to Bloomberg>