Blackstone Group IPO -- the real thing?

Posted Mar 16th 2007 12:50PM by Melly Alazraki
Filed under: Private Equity, Goldman Sachs Group (GS), KKR Financial (KFN), Apollo Investment (AINV), Blackstone Group L.P (BX)

Since the story of private equity firm The Blackstone Group's potential initial public offering has been out only a couple hours, it is still very much developing. With so few details out, the implications are as yet unknown. Here is Tom Taulli's earlier piece on the subject.

From CNBC's Faber (you can watch the video here, partial transcript's here) we know that the Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE:GS) and Blackstone attorneys are preparing a prospectus. Preparing is one thing and filing is another, and yet Faber is quite adamant in his belief Blackstone will file within two weeks or by the end of March. Also, the decision to go public rests on Chairman and Chief Executive Stephen Schwarzman. Once again, an adamant Faber says "the decision has been all but made."

While Faber said that Blackstone's market value could be easily in excess of $20 billion according to bankers, MarketWatch points out that it isn't clear yet what kind of an IPO this would be. The shares could represent

the Blackstone Group itself, or they could represent a fund that's managed by Blackstone Group, much like Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. KKR Financial Corp. (NYSE:KFN) real-estate investment trust and Apollo Management's Apollo Investment Corp. (NASDAQ:AINV).

Regardless, and especially if the Fortress Investment Group (NYSE:FIG) is any indication, there would be strong interest in the IPO. Considering all the noise and after the year private equity had had, I, for one, think that this IPO is going to be the real thing.

Tags: ainv, Apollo Management, ApolloManagement, Blackstone Group, BlackstoneGroup, fig, Fortress Investment Group, FortressInvestmentGroup, goldman sachs, GoldmanSachs, gs, kfn, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, KohlbergKravisRoberts, private equity, PrivateEquity

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

3-16-2007 @ 1:09PM

Rick Hanley said...

Blackstone, another big, fat, ugly whore coming out at the market top.

Separately, why is it so hard for Netflix to sell their product? Netflix ads are to the Internet what cigarettes are to the sidewalks and highways. Netflix is consistently at the top of the leader board for advertising on the net (see Neilsen/AdRelevance stats).