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Alltel will be more competitive in private hands

Alltel Wireless will be far more competitive following the $27 billion buyout by divisions of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) and Texas Pacific Group.

How fast will Alltel be able to scale its customer base and compete with the big four wireless companies? Much faster as a private company if you ask me.

Without quarterly numbers to hit, the company can pour capital into becoming what it has the potential to be and at some future time re-enter the market for the payoffs for GS Capital Partners and TPG Group. Until then, we'll all see what Alltel can do to compete with the larger carriers over time. With this buyout probably having been in the works for most of 2007, you can bet a solid plan is already in place.

With 12 million customers. Alltel is the fifth-largest wireless company behind AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T), Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) and T-Mobile USA. It owns wireless liceneses giving it coverage area bigger than the larger four carriers, which is a huge attraction for the private equity firms who already are drawn to the red-hot wireless industry.

The upside is great for this deal since people are dropping land line telephones and moving to the wireless and Internet telephony.

Now it's time to execute.

Blackstone's workers generate nine times as much profit as Goldman's

It must be something in the water, but Blackstone Group LP's workers produce nine times the profit as their counterparts at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE:GS), according to an analysis by Bloomberg News.

Blackstone's 770 workers produced an average of $2.95 million in net income last year compared with $360,000 at Goldman Sachs which has about 31,000 workers, Bloomberg says. This raises some interesting questions about how the market will value the New York-based hedge fund company.

If investors value it like Goldman, it will trade at about 10 times earnings with a market capitalization of $23 billion while a Fortress Investment Group LLC (NYSE:FIG) multiple would value Blackstone at about $29 billion, Bloomberg News says. Goldman's market capitalization is $87 billion and Fortess Investment Group's is $37 billion.

Blackstone, though, will trade at a premium to both companies -- at least at first -- because its performance has been amazing over the past few years.

Continue reading Blackstone's workers generate nine times as much profit as Goldman's

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S&P 500+4.981,110.63

Last updated: November 25, 2009: 08:37 PM

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