Just one word: Blackstone.

June 21st, 2007

It’s dominating the news today, and it will be dominating my thoughts come the morrow, since I’m scheduled to appear on CNBC’s “Morning Call” program at a little after 10 a.m. Central time to discuss the Blackstone IPO. For now, some high-level thoughts:

  • Messrs. Schwartzman, Peterson, et al. will make out just fine, and the deal’s underwriters should do well, too (even if they’re not getting paid as much as usual).
  • I’m hardly an investment adviser, so please don’t take this as gospel, but secondary investors — i.e. folks like you and me who could get in on this IPO tomorrow or later — are unlikely to reap big rewards from the deal.
  • A few other private equity firms might follow suit and offer a portion of themselves to the public. Likely candidates: KKR, TPG, Carlyle.
  • I don’t expect a wave of IPOs from smaller players in the private equity business, especially if Congress changes the way these firms’ proceeds are taxed.

More on this tomorrow. Please tune in to see me!

Category: Finance & Real Estate, IPOs

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8 Comments so far

Hoover’s Business Insight Zone » End-of-week updates. - Hoover's June 22nd, 2007 1:03 pm

[...] on Blackstone’s IPO to come; meanwhile, as I touched on yesterday, it looks like KKR may go the same [...]

Hoover’s Business Insight Zone » A solid week for IPOs. - Hoover's June 28th, 2007 12:34 pm

[...] what about that wee little $4 billion IPO from last week? Well, when we were on the CNBC together last Friday, Ken Fisher and I agreed that [...]

Hoover’s Business Insight Zone » You know what we need around here? More billion-dollar IPOs, that's what. - Hoover's July 11th, 2007 5:21 pm

[...] had been flying for months that KKR would follow in the footsteps of Blackstone’s historic $4 billion IPO.** The private equity business is notoriously stocked with competitive types — as in, Tiger [...]

Hoover’s Business Insight Zone » Blackstone, six weeks later. - Hoover's August 3rd, 2007 12:43 pm

[...] frenzy was huge. The talk was ubiquitious. The aftermath . . . was [...]

Hoover’s Business Insight Zone » An amusing but apt take on Blackstone's share price. - Hoover's September 10th, 2007 7:59 am

[...] offers this (mildly-PG13) take on the declining share price of Blackstone in the months since its hyperventilative IPO: Unlike the typical public company CEO, PE guys are almost completely uninvested, emotionally and [...]

Hoover’s Business Insight Zone » If Citadel goes public, brace yourself. - Hoover's September 19th, 2007 6:41 am

[...] create money by sheer force of will. (If you don’t believe me, just cast your mind back to the coverage of Blackstone’s IPO . . [...]

Blackstone: I told you so. -- Hoover’s Business Insight Zone November 13th, 2007 11:53 am

[...] to the point, Blackstone told you so. Back in June, when the private equity titan made its IPO, I said on CNBC that the stock was way too expensive because it had three premiums built into [...]

Blackstone offers a window into the state of high finance. -- Hoover’s Business Insight Zone November 6th, 2008 1:14 pm

[...] a truly old-school reader of this blog, you’ll recall that I covered Blackstone’s IPO (here, here, here, and here) in the summer and fall of 2007, but I had already been an interested [...]

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