Getting seasick yet?: Blackstone capped off a truly ugly first week of trading even further in the red, closing at $29.27, down another .42 on Friday. After hours trading closed at $29.18. Options start trading on BX on Monday on the Amex.
Just an amusing thought: Wonder how far the stock has to fall before Blackstone considers taking themselves private again?
Here’s what the very nasty daily chart looks like so far. :
Tags: Blackstone, IPO
After bidding for the past several years, fund manager and avid Warren Buffett disciple Mohnish Pabrai finally won the prized opportunity to have lunch with his idol. He was an early bidder for last year’s auction, bidding as much as $502,300. However, he wasn’t the winner. Yongping Duan, 45, a California investor was the last bidder standing, ponying up $620,100. In 2005 Pabrai bid 300,000 and 202,000 in 2004, all falling short. He told the Orange County Register in 2005 that "Eventually, I’ll win."
This year his prediction came true. Pabrai, who runs Irvine, California based Pabrai Investment Funds, was finally victorious paying $650,100 and setting a new record for the now annual Lunch with Buffett charity auction which ended on Friday evening….
Tags: Ebay
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Tags: Bear Stearns, Jim Cayne, Lawsuit
Private equity groups believe litigation against them will increase as they become more high profile, according to a study published on Tuesday.
They fear an avalanche of lawsuits from regulators in particular, even though this type of lawsuit has been almost non-existent so far. Forty-seven per cent of private equity groups expect legal action against their industry to increase in the next two years, while only 6 per cent think it will fall, according to the study by Marsh, the world’s biggest insurance broker.
Tags: Lawyers, Private equity
- Bancroft Heir Pursues Alternative to Murdoch
- CBOT-Merc plan wins support
- A.G. Edwards chief set for $7.5 million in stock
- BATS CEO to step down before it becomes exchange
- BBVA Plans to Hire 240 Derivatives Bankers Worldwide
- ABN AMRO hires new head of China consumer banking
- More headlines below
Yet another day in the red. Blackstone tried to rally ever so close to the $31 ipo price early on, but to no avail. After 11 am or so it made for great downhill skiing for the rest of the day, closing at $29.69, losing another .23. After hours action ended at $29.66.
That’s Steve Schwarzman expertly navigating the candlestick slope…
Tags: Blackstone, Charts, IPO
- The ABCs of CDOs. Can you spell RISKY?
- CDO market near halt amid deeper subprime worries
- Axed deals reflect subprime chill
- Carlyle Postpones $415 Million IPO of Mortgage Fund
- Hedge funds’ mortgage woes could spread
Tags: Carlyle, Hedge funds
Ready another burial plot: London based Caliber Global Investment Ltd, a $908 million subprime fund managed by Cambridge Place Investment Management, is the latest fund to implode under the weight of a boatload of loans gone bad. The fund will liquidate its investments and close down within a year. Kudos to Deutsche Banke for their investment acumen and timing: they bought an 11% stake in Caliber in March of this year.
Caliber will seek an “orderly return of all of its capital to investors over
the next 12 months in order to maximize value for shareholders,” Caliber said
in its statement. “There is insufficient demand currently for investment.”
Tags: Hedge funds
Blackstone’s Steve Schwarzman will be out partying again tonight, this time with the Kennedys:
WASHINGTON lawmakers are looking for ways
to tax billionaire Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, but the investment guru
clearly still has some friends in high places. Tonight, he’ll toast Rep. Patrick
Kennedy at the Rhode Island congressman’s 40th birthday party at the New York
Yacht Club. Joining Schwarzman, who chairs the Kennedy Center board in D.C.,
will be Patrick’s father, Sen. Ted Kennedy, cousin Caroline Kennedy and brother
Ted Kennedy Jr.
Kennedy Crowd – Page Six New York Post
Tags: Blackstone, Politics
Goldman Sachs is "organizing" themselves "like the market is undervaluing risk." according to the CEO Lloyd Blankfein’s comments at the Wall Street Journal’s Deals & Deal Makers Conference yesterday…..
"The biggest risk we face would be a
very big crisis in the credit markets," Mr. Blankfein said. What could
cause that? A "sentiment shift," which "could unravel very
quickly" the vast wealth that has been created by the boom, he said.To be sure, Mr. Blankfein didn’t strike a
particular tone of nervousness. He said he doesn’t think the leveraged-buyout
boom has peaked — "We’ve called this peak a number of times," he
said. He also said that conditions "seem quite benign," marked by low
rates of inflation and low interest rates around the world. Of course, the
diminutive Wall Street titan then added, "I start at a high state of
worry."
Carl Icahn, on the flip side, thinks that the LBO market may have peaked.
Goldman’s Chief Admits Nerves – Wall Street Journal
Goldman CEO: World less risky, but stay on guard – Reuters
Tags: bonds, Carl Icahn, Goldman Sachs, LBO / MBO, Lloyd Blankfein
With the rise of shareholders activists – who are rejecting what are now more often being perceived as lowball LBO bids — not to mention balking bondholders and a more difficult financing environment, Carl Icahn thinks that the LBO market has peaked:
Billionaire financier Carl Icahn on
Wednesday told an investor audience that the spate of recent leveraged buyouts
has "peaked" because shareholders are balking at selling their
companies too cheaply and deal financing is getting more expensive.The 71-year-old financier, who has built up an estimated net worth of $13
billion by buying and selling companies over 25 years, predicted that LBO firms
won’t be able to win shareholder approval for deals as easily as in recent
years.
Tags: bonds, Carl Icahn, LBO / MBO
- News Corp. Awaits Reply From Bancrofts
- Murdoch hints that $5bn bid for WSJ may fall through
- Heard on the Street: Banks on a Bridge Too Far?
- Court throws out case against Citigroup
- HSBC warns of ‘tears’ if big deal goes wrong
- More headlines below
Blackstone swooned from the start on day four after it’s IPO, diving to $29.13 in the first half hour of trading. It recovered somewhat later in the day, coming within .25 of it’s $31 IPO price, but then it died, ending the day at $29.92, down another .83. (After hours trading closed at $29.80. Steve Schwarzman’s timing is looking pretty good right now….
Tags: Blackstone, Charts, IPO
- Merrill Sued by U.S., Accused of Anti-Iranian Bias
- Goldman’s Schwartz, Fund Unit Co-Head, to Step Down
- Lehman Brothers loses senior man
- JPMorgan hires Credit Suisse banker for India
Tags: Goldman Sachs, investment banking, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Revolving Door
- Subprime Woes Touch A U.K. Public Fund, Opening Up the Game [Cheyne]
- Bear Stearns Turns to Marano for Bailout, Underscoring Risks
- Bear private equity not exposed to subprime woes
- Bear Stearns stands firm in face of trouble
- Merrill’s O’Neal Sees No `Contagion’ From Subprime Mortgages
Tags: Bear Stearns, Cheyne Capital, Hedge funds, Merrill Lynch, Private equity
Goldman Sachs isn’t only competing with other investment banking firms, hedge funds and private equity to attract talent these days. Now it finds itself more often than not bumping recruiting heads with Google which, given the culture, lifestyle, flexible hours and other benefits that the west coast company promises. And Google is often coming out the winner:
Before earning her master’s degree in computer science at Georgia Institute of Technology in May, Zhang had two job offers from Goldman Sachs Group Inc., two from Microsoft Corp. and one from Google Inc. Then a headhunter phoned to pitch a job at Renaissance Technologies Corp., the $20 billion hedge fund firm led by math guru James Simons.
“Goldman says I can make lots of money,” says Zhang, 24, a native of Harbin, China, who wears bright purple glasses and spent last summer writing video game software for Electronic Arts Inc.
Zhang asked for advice from a Chinese friend who once worked at Goldman and is now at a San Francisco-based hedge fund. The woman agreed that writing software for Goldman’s option traders in New York would be thrilling, Zhang says. Then she confided she can’t sleep at night because of work stress. “Life is different if you focus too much on money,” Zhang says. Besides, after growing up in China’s frozen northern provinces, she says she loves the California sun. She starts at Google in July.
Tags: Goldman Sachs, Google, Hedge funds, investment banking, Private equity, Recruiting
Hillary Clinton’s war chest is now at least $1 million richer thanks to the fundraiser hosted last night by Warren Buffett in New York.
Buffett, a Democrat, has not formally
endorsed Clinton, but guests at the dinner said he called the New York senator
"the person to run the country."Central to Buffett’s message was the notion that he and other privileged
Americans – those who had drawn the "lucky tickets" – had an
obligation to provide for those less fortunate."We have the chance in 2008 to repair a lot of damage," Buffett said.
"We have a wonderful economy, the market system works in this country. Our
problem is how we conduct ourselves in the world."
Tags: Political Contributions, Politics
Just out of the starting gate, Blackstone traded at $29.57 at 9:31, setting another new low for the stock….
Tags: Blackstone, Charts, IPO
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Tags: Bear Stearns, Hedge funds
- Murdoch: No plans to raise Dow Jones bid
- It’s This Close – News Corp., Dow Jones Agree On Oversight
- Momentum is back with Barclays
- Private equity ‘could boost FT’
- Blow to Nasdaq-OMX merger
- LSE CEO expects shareholder backing for Milan deal
- More headlines below
Another oogly day: The stock tanked early, losing the $31 IPO price around 10am and never recovered. Day low: $30.32. Close: $30.75.
Tags: Blackstone, Charts, IPO
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Tags: Homebuilders
(Warren’s not officially supporting HIllary — he thinks Obama would also make a fine president, and has offered to host a party for him too.)
The event is in two parts. First, there is an “intimate” dinner with Mrs Clinton and Mr Buffett for 50 guests paying $4,600 each – the maximum allowed, people involved in the planning said. Later, more donors – smaller contributors – will go to the Sheraton Hotel in Manhattan for what was billed as “a conversation” with the Democratic New York senator and the world’s second richest man.
Bankers helping Mrs Clinton include Roger Altman, the former deputy Treasury secretary who runs
Evercore, a boutique bank, and Blair Effron of Centerview, another boutique, who is advising Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp in its $5bn bid for Dow Jones.
Tags: DE Shaw, Evercore, Farallon, Hedge funds, Jim Simons, John Mack, Perry Capital, Private equity, Renaissance Technologies, Rupert Murdoch
That didn’t take long: As we stare at our screens, BX is trading at $30.60, below it’s $31 IPO price..
Tags: Blackstone, Charts, IPO
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