NEW YORK (Reuters) - Private equity and real estate firm Blackstone Group Inc <BX.N> paid its top executives a total $38 million in bonuses last year, according to a regulatory filing, even as the company's shares halved after its IPO.

Blackstone Group also paid out $648 million in cash distributions to its senior executives, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Those cash distributions mostly refer to the executives' share of the firm's earnings prior to its initial public offering and won't be repeated in future years.

Blackstone's high-profile co-founder and chief executive, Stephen Schwarzman, 61, wasn't paid a bonus, after reaping $684 million through selling a stake in the IPO. But, along with the company's other senior executives, he receives an annual salary of $350,000.

According to the filing, Schwarzman was excluded from the bonus pool to align his interests with stockholders. However, he received a cash distribution of about $350 million.

Schwarzman now owns 234 million Blackstone shares according to the filing, worth $3.9 billion at current prices. Those shares vest over a period of years -- working as an incentive for him to stay as he can only cash them in after they vest. Of his shares, $729 million vested in 2007.

Blackstone went public in June at a price of $31 a share, coming on the back of a boom for private equity. Shortly after the IPO, a credit crunch hit, putting a halt to the large leveraged buyouts that had boosted private equity firms' income so much.

Blackstone on Monday posted a worse-than-expected 86 percent decline in quarterly earnings. Its shares are currently around half their IPO amount. On Wednesday, the shares rose 28 cents, or 1.7 percent, to close at $16.78.

Eighty-one-year-old co-founder and senior chairman Peter Peterson, who plans to retire before the end of 2008, was paid a bonus of $2.5 million and a cash distribution of $171 million.

Peterson, who pledged $1 billion of his personal fortune to a foundation aimed at resolving U.S. economic woes, reaped $1.92 billion in IPO proceeds. Blackstone said in the filing it expects to pay him a bonus of $6.3 million this year. Peterson owns 4 percent of Blackstone's stock worth about $750 million.

According to Wednesday's filing, Chief Operating Officer Hamilton James was paid a $16.4 million bonus for 2007, and took a cash distribution of $82 million. James reaped $191 million through selling stock in the IPO and now owns 5 percent of Blackstone's shares, worth about $878 million.

J. Tomilson Hill, who runs the company's Funds of Hedge Funds operations, was paid a $15.8 million bonus and a $30 million cash distribution.

Blackstone paid Schwarzman and Peterson $234,225 for use of their jointly owned helicopter for business purposes, and paid Schwarzman $1.4 million for use of his personal airplane for work. The figures were based on current market rates for chartering private aircraft, Blackstone said.

Wall Street bosses routinely rake in large year-end bonuses. For example, Goldman Sachs Group Inc <GS.N> Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein was awarded a $67.9 million bonus payable in cash, restricted stock and stock options for 2007.

(Editing by Phil Berlowitz, Gary Hill)

By Megan Davies