FINalternatives has culled through the Forbes list for all of the alternative investment guys who are represented. Notably missing: Allen Stanford. Here's the list:
Tags: Allen Stanford, Avenue Investments, Bruce Kovner, Carl Icahn, Citadel, DE Shaw, Eddie Lampert, George Soros, Harbinger, Hedge funds, Henry Kravis, Highbridge, Jim Simons, Leon Black, Private equity, SAC Capital, Sam Zell
Is now the time for a private equity turnaround? With the market in turmoil, Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman thinks there are tremendous opportunities. He was the focus of a piece in The Economist:
Tags: Blackstone, Credit Crunch, Private equity
If you haven't checked out the WSJ opinion page, Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman talks about the financial morass we find ourselves in and and maps out what he thinks are the necessary ingredients for preventing another one. He cites seven principles that should be part of any global financial regulation and monitoring solution: They include a common set of accounting principles, the structuring of the world's major markets along the same lines, full transparency for financial statements, full disclosure of all financial instruments to the regulator, the regulator should have oversight of all financial institutions, getting rid of mark to market accounting for hard to value assets, move to a principles based regulatory system rather than a rules based one because the rules can't keep up with the rapidly changes in the financial system. And wrapping it up, he envisions a "new global organization of regulators".
You can read the piece here.
Tags: Blackstone, Credit Crunch
Looking back, after having become the poster boy for Wall Street excess who enjoys $400 stone crabs and who took his company public at what turned out to be the top of the market, even Steve Schwarzman thinks that his 2007 60th birthday party may have been just a tad over the top:
"Obviously, I wouldn't have wanted to do that and become, you know,
some kind of symbol of sorts of that period of time," Schwarzman
lamented yesterday at a conference in New York. "Who would ever wish
that on themselves? No one."…
It also eventually garnered Schwarzman considerable grief as many began to view the party as the beginning of the end of Wall Street's gilded age.
The Party's Over – NY Post
Tags: Charts, Private equity
(click to enlarge)
The Blackstone CEO was quoted at the Super Return Middle East conference in
Dubai after the Treasury’s huge bank equity injection. According to
Bloomberg:
Tags: Blackstone, Charts, Credit Crunch
Steve Schwarzman commented on the market turmoil:
"We are in unprecedented territory
right now," Stephen Schwarzman, asked about the events of the past week,
said at a private equity conference organized by Dow Jones."Seeing a firm basically evaporate like that is unsettling. It’s a tragedy
for the people working there and it is a sign that something is amiss with the
financial system," he said.It was "abundantly clear that the current regulatory structure for
financial institutions doesn’t work well," Schwarzman said."It’s a whole series of different regulators that were created at different
points in times," he said, adding it needed to be simplified and
integrated. There should not be "venue-shopping for regulation," he
said."When you have all of these rules, and companies are in compliance of these
rules, and they’re going out of business, something isn’t right," he said.
Blackstone CEO says financial rules must change – Reuters
Tags: Blackstone, Credit Crunch
Some NY restaurants will go to almost any length to make its customers happy. Take the Four Seasons Grill Room — they’re even happy to fetch food from other restaurants to feed to their own customers — at a nice mark up:
If you don’t want people to come
back, you don’t take care of them." He takes very good care, however, of
…… Blackstone Group CEO Stephen Schwarzman and Blackstone’s co-founder,
billionaire Peter Peterson, who likes Chinese food. "If [Peter] wants, I
will send someone to a Chinese restaurant down the block" to pick up his
favorite dishes, Julian says. "But I’ll charge Four Seasons prices, of
course.”
Food Fight! – Page Six Magazine
Tags: Blackstone, Restaurants
The New York Post’s Page Six Magazine (which is now online) tells us who you have to impress if you want to live in the highest class NYC Coops…
Tags: Alan "Ace" Greenberg, Real Estate
My, how time flies. A year ago, actually a year ago yesterday (6/22), Blackstone went public at $31/ share, popped on day one then it was pretty much all downhill from there. So for strong stomached investors who bought on day one and still hold it, today might be more of an Unhappy Anniversary….
Tags: Blackstone, Charts, IPO
Or was Alan Schwartz just plain dissed at a luncheon hosted by Ben Bernanke and attended by most every other Wall Street BSD? Or maybe he was invited and was just too busy trying to put out fires on the home front. In any case, Bernanke hosted one hellofa gathering (click on picture to enlarge)….
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke
lunched on March 11 with a Who’s Who of Wall Street leaders, including JPMorgan
Chase & Co.’s Jamie Dimon, three days before the central bank rescued Bear
Stearns Cos. from bankruptcy.Other guests included Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein,
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. CEO Richard Fuld, Morgan Stanley President James
Gorman, Citigroup Inc.’s Robert Rubin, Blackstone Group CEO Stephen Schwarzman
and Merrill Lynch & Co. CEO John Thain. Alan Schwartz, the CEO of Bear
Stearns, was not listed among the attendees.
Tags: Alan Schwartz, Bear Stearns, Ben Bernanke, Bruce Kovner, Dick Fuld, Fed, Goldman Sachs, Jamie Dimon, John Thain, JPM Chase, Lloyd Blankfein, Morgan Stanley, Robert Rubin
Material girl Madge is reportedly getting paid around $25 million — roughly $15 million for a 90 minute concert and another $10 million for a millionaire’s private party, both in Dubai. According to Gordon Smart of The Sun (UK):
“The negotiations for the tour to stop in
Dubai in November are being finalised and she will get £7.5million for the one
show only. The figure is so big because of her new contract with Live Nation and
the huge funds available from private promoters in Dubai.”Madge signed to the company for £60million
last autumn.And if that wasn’t enough, she is also in
talks to perform at a private party for a mystery punter while she is out there
which will earn her another £5million.
That makes Rod Stewart’s performance at Blackstone CEO’s Steve Schwarzman’s 60th birthday bash sound like a bargain. Stewart was reportedly paid around a million bucks….
Madonna £12m for two gigs – The Sun
Tags: Blackstone, Music
There’s been speculation for months and months — now Leon Black’s Apollo Management is going the IPO route issuing 29.8 million class A shares. Black, and his co-founders, Josh Harris and Mark Rowan, Drexel alums who founded the firm after Drexel imploded, naturally stand to bank large. (But probably not as large as Steve Schwarzman et al banked when Blackstone took their firm public at nearly the top of the market. The shares currently trade privately at around $14 / share on Goldman’s private over the counter exchange (GSTrue). Apollo sold shares in a private transaction to Goldman, JP Morgan and Credit Suisse in a private offering in August at $24/share, so they’re under water. Oops. It’s not clear exactly whose shares will be sold into the offering since the table of "Selling Shareholders" isn’t yet filled in.
In its 406-page securities filing, Apollo
shrugged off worries about an economic downturn and its inability to do
traditional limited buyouts, instead embracing the period as a time of
opportunity. "Investors should understand that we may significantly
increase the pace of investment when the ‘prevailing wisdom’ is to sell and may
decrease the pace of investment or sell large portions of our funds’ portfolios
when the ‘prevailing wisdom’ is to buy," the filing states.The partners at Apollo make a base cash salary of $100,000 a year, but have a
windfall as part of the reorganization of the firm in July in preparation for
capital-raising. Although individual compensation is not yet broken out,
Apollo’s partners will get stock and restricted stock units valued at a total of
$986 million. The firm’s restricted-stock units have long vesting periods of six
years, which is about twice the normal length of such units on Wall Street.
IPO for Apollo Management - Wall Street Journal
Here are some excerpts from the S-1 filing, including shareholdings of the principals:
Tags: Apollo, Blackstone, IPO, Leon Black, Private equity
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The festivities took place at Le Cirque according to Page Six. The Blackstone Group CEO was with his Mrs, Christine. Naturally, stone crabs, Steve’s faves, were on the menu….
Tags: Birthdays, Blackstone
Happy Birthday Steve Schwarzman!
The Blackstone head got lots of flak for his beyond excessive 60th birthday bash last year held at the Park Avenue Armory. This year’s Valentine’s Day soiree for #61 is said to be far more low key with only "his family and few friends" according to a New York Post report from last weekend. And probably more than a few of his beloved $400 a pop stone crabs…..
Schwarzman Plans a Low-Key Birthday - New York Post
Tags: Birthdays, Blackstone
Oogly. Blackstone hit another post IPO low: It looked like it was going to end the day below $18 — hitting its low of $17.91 nanoseconds before 4pm — but it was magically bid up to $18 when all was said and done. A far cry from its $31 IPO price.
Tags: Blackstone, Charts
Blackstone raised a new $1.3 billion vulture fund to take advantage of the growing universe of distressed securuties:
Blackstone Credit Liquidity Partners LP
will buy collateralized debt obligations, leveraged-buyout loans, bridge
financings and other securities, the New York-based firm said in a statement
today. Blackstone’s corporate debt group now manages more than $11 billion.“We’re confident we can benefit our new
fund’s investors by capitalizing on current conditions in the credit markets,”
President Hamilton James said in the statement.Dean Criares, head of Blackstone’s
corporate debt group, will oversee the fund, spokesman John Ford said in an
interview. He declined to comment on the fund’s targets.Blackstone Raises $1.3 Billion Fund for Loans, CDOs – Bloomberg
Tags: Blackstone, Credit Crunch, Distressed
We’ve brought you the OfficeMax dancing elves of Wall Street, of Hedge Funds and now we present to you the dancing elves of Private Equity. Watch Blackstone’s Steve Schwarzman, KKR’s Henry Kravis, Apollo’s Leon Black and J.C.Flowers & Co’s Christopher Flowers….
Prior Post: The Dancing Hedge Fund Elves
Tags: Apollo, Blackstone, Henry Kravis, Humor, KKR, Leon Black, Private equity
Page Six sightings included Blackstone Group CEO Steve Schwarzman "eyeing a Van Gogh, "cheap" at $9.5 million, at the Boys Club of NY
preview party for the Westchester Enterprises Antiques & Art show
at the Park Avenue Armory, amid the likes Karen LeFrak and Geoffrey
Bradfield and co-chairs Jamee Gregory and Mario Buatta". No idea if he bought it. But to put it into other terms, the "cheap" price boils down to 23,750 of his beloved $400 stone crabs… Sightings – NY Post
Tags: Blackstone
Speaking at CBI’s annual conference Blackstone boss Stephen Schwarzman defended the private equity industry as "a force for good"….
Stephen Schwarzman, chairman and co-founder
of Blackstone, told the CBI’s annual conference that private equity was having a
rough ride – from the media and the credit crunch – but that its contribution to
the global economy would remain significant."I suspect private equity’s current
image among many people has been coloured by myths and fears that have more to
do with anxiety about changes in the global economy and their own lives than
with private equity itself," he said."We are not greedy speculators out to
make a quick buck. Private equity does great things that benefit a great number
of people," Mr Schwarzman said."We take the tough, unpopular decisions that other management teams
dodge."
Private equity a force for good – Daily Telegraph
Tags: Blackstone, Private equity
Yesterday Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman got to celebrate — his son Teddy got married. But while he was still presumably off making merry in Jamaica, there was no celebration at Blackstone this morning — the company released earnings early this morning that disappointed, including disclosures of lower fees, and immediately it dumped to $21, a new historic low, before the market opened. The stock traded up slightly from there as Blackstone President Tony James presided over the conference call, but still ended the day at $22.26, down 2 points on the day…..
Tags: Blackstone, Charts
Blackstone Group CEO Stephen Schwarzman celebrated the wedding of his UPenn graduate son Teddy, 28, this weekend to Emory grad Ellen Zajac, 26. Both are lawyers. She’s in structured finance at Thacher Proffitt & Wood working at in residential mortgage back securities. Good thing her hubby has a lot of bucks given the state of *that* particular business and the downsizing going on at other law firms in mortgage related areas. If she’s laid off, at least she won’t go hungry enjoying those famous $400 stone crab claws at the in-laws. Teddy’s at Skadden in corporate restructuring and real estate law, which at the very moment seems to probably have a somewhat better future as jobs go. According to their wedding announcement in the New York Times:
Ellen Marie Zajac, a daughter of Ellen
Zajac and John Zajac of Berlin, Md., was married last night at the Round Hill
Hotel and Villas near Montego Bay, Jamaica, to Edward Frank Schwarzman, the son
of Ellen Katz and Stephen A. Schwarzman, both of New York. The Rev. Arthur
Becker, a Roman Catholic priest and an uncle of the bride, and Michael Matalon,
the president of the Shaare Shalom Synagogue in Kingston, Jamaica, led the
ceremony; Stephen Henriques, a marriage officer in Jamaica, served as the legal
officiant.The bride and bridegroom are associates at
law firms in New York. She is in the structured finance practice at Thacher
Proffitt & Wood, where she works in residential mortgage-backed securities,
and he is at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, where he works in
corporate restructuring and real estate law. They met at Duke, from which they
received their law degrees, he cum laude.Here’s their wedding announcement picture that appeared in the NY Timess:
Tags: Blackstone, M&A
While not abandoning their lobbying to quash proposed tax increases facing them, Blackstone and other firms that will be forced to pony up are looking at "Plan B": stalling any increases for as long as 10 years….
Lawmakers say pressure from the firms has
pushed them into discussions about doubling the five-year grace period contained
in a draft of legislation introduced in June by Senate Finance Committee
Chairman Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, and Iowa Senator Charles Grassley, the
top Republican on the panel.The length of the grace period “is in
flux,” Grassley, 74, said in an interview. Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, a
Democrat on the panel who has expressed skepticism about the legislation,
agreed. Ten years is “what we’re looking at,” said Kerry, 63.For Blackstone, Fortress Investment Group
LLC, and Oaktree Capital Management LLC, a 10-year delay might be the next best
thing to killing the bill outright. Under the current proposal, those firms
would obtain a five-year reprieve because they either completed their initial
public offerings or filed to do so before the legislation was introduced.
Tags: Blackstone, Private equity
While quant funds were up to their eyeballs in losses in August, Morgan Stanley quants were right up there with them. They managed to lose $390 million on a single day in August, according to their 10Q filed today. (It’s on page 88 for those who care).
To put it into perspective, $390 million is equivalent to:
(Thanks to the reader who corrected our big red-faced GDP error earlier!)
Tags: Credit Crunch, Dan Loeb, John Mack, Morgan Stanley
We must admit, we’ve had great fun with the abysmal post IPO trading of Blackstone’s stock. It’s been mostly downhill since its debut in late June when it was priced at $31, shot up to $38 and then subsequently fell with a thud to a low of $21.30. It’s provided ample opportunities to let our artistically creative juices flow with a little help from Photoshop.(You can see more of our handiwork here.)
But is it time to finally consider going long? Fortune Magazine’s Adam Lashinsky thinks it just might be, especially if you have a long term horizon:
Tags: Blackstone, Charts, Private equity
Does Stephen Scharzman’s charitable foundation have assets of only $63,424 to spread around? In the world of big money charitable giving that’s clearly nothing. In Blackstone billionaire’s comfort food terms, it amounts to just 159 of his favorite $400-a-piece stone crabs (or 1586 of the $40-a-piece claws!) Page Six tells us:
STEPHEN Schwarzman, the Blackstone Group
chairman whom some have called a poster boy for greed, isn’t very generous with
his billions. Schwarzman paid himself a cool $677 million when he took his
private equity firm public (retaining shares worth $7.7 billion), but his
Schwarzman Charitable Foundation has assets of just $63,424, reports Contribute
magazine. Michael Gross also says the foundation, according to its 2006 tax
return, is holding just $991 for charitable purposes. "You’ve proven you
can bring home the bacon better than anyone else right now. But so what?"
Gross writes. "When are you and your colleagues going to start spreading
around more of the pork?"(That’s our "fun with Photoshop" ode to Steve’s love of stone crabs to the left)
Hoard the Bacon - Page Six New York Post
Tags: Blackstone, Philanthropy
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