Blackstone: Dark times until 2009

After reaching an all-time low of $15.25 recently, shares of Blackstone (NYSE: BX) have staged a nice comeback. In today's trading, the stock price is up 6.71% to $17.0.2

So, are we seeing a turnaround in the buyout market? Not necessarily.

This week, there is a "Super Return" conference in Munich. Basically, it's a get-together for the big-wigs of private equity. And yes, Blackstone's chief operating officer, Hamilton James, is one of the attendees. Unfortunately, he has more bad news, according to a piece in Reuters.

That is, the debt markets have continued to deteriorate over the past month -- which will make it even more difficult to get deals done as well as work off the huge buyout debt backlog. His message is that the tough times will last at least until 2009.

Even so, James thinks there is still opportunity. Basically, with low prices on buyout debt, Blackstone can pick up some bargains. More importantly, the firm has billions in fresh capital to be opportunistic.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates DealProfiles.com.