When will the real estate market make a comeback? Well, it seems that the Blackstone Group (BX) thinks it is already happening. The firm has won a bid for 588 U.S. shopping malls. The price tag? A cool $9.4 billion. In fact, the auction was heated, involving other top real estate investors like Starwood Capital.

The seller is Centro, which is based in Australia. The company has been trying to pare down its debt load since the financial crisis hit in 2008. After the sale of the assets, Centro will be left with 112 malls.

Because of the complexities of its business, it can be difficult to decipher whether the Blackstone Group (BX) has posted a profit. In its latest earnings report, there was a net loss of $11 million, or $0.03 per share, up from a loss of $143.3 million in the same period a year ago.

But private equity firms highlight another metric: economic net income. It's supposed to be a better reflection of the earnings. According to this, Blackstone saw a 46% rise to $0.29 per share in profits.

As the economy rebounds and credit markets warm up again, it looks like private equity firms are going back to work -- on big deals. According to Bloomberg.com, Apollo Global Management is prepared to offer $12 billion for Sara Lee (SLE). The transaction would also include investor C. Dean Metropoulos -- who bought Pabst Brewing in 2010 -- as well as Bain Capital and TPG.

It looks like this is a viable offer even though a strategic buyer is interested (which often can justify a higher valuation). This is JBS SA, a beef processor based in Brazil. An acquisition would certainly have lots of synergy, creating a vertical operation. Interestingly enough, JBS may seek the help of the Blackstone Group (BX).

You may be interested in buying an HDMI cable or a cell phone from RadioShack (RSH), but it looks like a few private equity companies and one competitor may be interested in buying the entire company. According to dealReporter, RadioShack had set a July 1 deadline for non-binding indications of interest from any company that was looking at buying the company.

Analysts are speculating that the same private equity companies that were mentioned in a June 1 New York Post article -- Blackstone Group, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Bain Capital and TPG -- might still be interested in the consumer electronic retailer. That same article also mentioned that Best Buy Co., Inc. (BBY) may be interested in clearing the competitive landscape by acquiring RadioShack.

Blackstone Group (BX), the publicly traded private equity firm, has high hopes for India's growth prospects. After announcing a $50 million stake in India-based media company Jagran Media Network, Blackstone revealed that it plans to invnest as much as $3 billion in the emerging market over the next five years.

"We are bullish on India," said Akhil Gupta, chairman and managing director of Blackstone India, during a telephone interview with Reuters. "We just invested nearly $1 billion in India during the last five years and we believe it could be two to three times [that amount] over the next five years."

If you're looking to buy into an upswing post-recession, it doesn't look like the private equity market will be on your list. Valuations didn't fall as much as you might think, meaning that the bargains you usually find during a downturn just aren't showing up this time.

In the leveraged buyout market, prices were around 25% higher, on average, than they were in 2001, when the dotcom economy fell apart, according to Standard & Poor's Leveraged Commentary & Data. And transactions closed in the past three months have hit heir highest levels since the private equity market peaked in 2007.

Says Christopher O'Brien, president for U.S. and Europe of Investcorp Bank BSC, another "golden era" isn't coming. He tells Bloomberg News, "There's a lot of pressure to put investors' money to work now, and valuations are still high. It's a seller's market."

JPMorgan Chase (JPM) wanted a piece of what could be the most interesting insurance IPO of the year, but it won't get a taste.

American International Group's (AIG) Asian life insurance unit, American International Association, is going to go public in Hong Kong for an estimated $10 billion, and JPMorgan isn't being allowed to play, insiders say, because of a sour relationship that stretches back to the September 2008 financial crisis. As a result, it will be the only major investment bank not being admitted to the party.

What has Blackstone (NYSE: BX) been doing with all those theme parks it's been buying? Well, the answer is becoming a bit clearer now. The private equity firm is getting ready to take theme park operator Merlin Entertainments public early next year.

Several investment banks have already been called to advise on the transaction, including Citigroup (NYSE: C), Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), Deutsche Bank (NYSE: DB), UBS (NYSE: UBS), and Nomura (NYSE: NMR). If all goes as planned, the deal could be good for $3.33 billion.

In the U.S., the prevailing sentiment is that the consumer is tapped out. And, even for those that have money, there will continue to be a good deal of frugality.

So, it would seem that theme parks would suffer, right?

Perhaps not. This is the thinking of Stephen Schwarzman, who is the chief of the Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX). Interestingly enough, he's doubling down on theme park investments, according to Reuters.com.

Up until the credit crisis, private equity firms had it made. They had plenty of leverage to play with and could load up their acquisition targets with it. So, they could realize a fantastic return on equity, mitigate their own risks, and show that they were the studs of the Street.

Then, all that went away. Credit markets dried up, and private equity companies lost their acquisition fuel. The numbers aren't as big as they used to be, but it looks like the private equity market is back in action.

The private equity industry has been through the worst, but now it seems the situation is taking a turn for the better. Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of Blackstone (NYSE: BX) expects deal flow and IPOs to bounce, saying the economy is showing "more than green shoots" of recovery.

Schwarzman, speaking at the Super Return Middle East conference in Dubai, doesn't expect another slip into recession, but the full recovery will take time, for all the same reasons you've been reading on BloggingStocks for a while: tighter lending standards; uncooperative consumers who won't spend beyond their means and so on.

The Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX - option chain) shares are rising today on reports that the buy-out firm is planning to unload a number of its portfolio companies, including TeamHealth, which provides outsourcing services for the health-care industry, and Merlin Entertainments Group, of Europe, which owns Legoland and Sea Life. Up to eight IPOs and five sales to private equity companies are in the works. If you think that the stock won't fall by too much in the coming months, then now could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged trade on BX.

Blackstone opened Monday at $15.50. In morning trading the stock hit a low of $15.50 and a high of $16.18. As of 11:15, BX was trading at $15.79 up 0.94 (6.3%). The chart for BX looks bullish.

According to the Wall Street Journal, China's government recently has pushed development of its local private-equity industry so that Chinese investors can get in on the country's private-equity deals. To that end, Chinese officials have tried to lure foreign money managers to raise funds from local investors.

Hong Kong-based First Eastern Investment Group, which plans to raise six billion yuan through a new wholly owned Shanghai subsidiary, and Asian brokerage CLSA Ltd., which plans to raise a 10 billion yuan fund through a joint-venture with state holding company Shanghai Guosheng Co., are just the latest to establish local-currency private-equity funds in Shanghai.

As seen on the Blackstone Group's (NYSE: BX) latest earnings conference call, the firm is trying to find ways to diversify its platform beyond buyouts (this is no fluke as other firms, like KKR, are doing the same thing). One of the areas of interest is actually hedge funds.

To this end, Blackstone made a big hire this week, bringing Byron Wien on board as the vice chairman of Blackstone Advisory Services. Actually, he is leaving Pequot Capital Management Inc., which is a hedge fund that is in the process of closing down (assets were as high as $15 billion). The firm is now faces an SEC investigation regarding trading in Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) stock. This is according to a report in the Wall Street Journal [a paid publication].

The market has made a nice rebound over the past few months, and one question is on every investor's lips: Can it continue?

To get an answer, it might not be a bad idea to look at what the private equity firms are planning. Remember when The Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX) decided to cash out with an IPO and it marked the exact top of the private equity boom? Take a look at how that stock has performed since then.

Well, now The Financial Times reports that "Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, the world's biggest buy-out group, is preparing up to six companies for initial public offerings worth billions of dollars, including Toys 'R Us, as it sells some of its most valuable groups back to the stock market."