In early February, The Blackstone Group announced that it had won the bidding for Equity Office Properties Trust in a record-breaking transaction worth $36 billion.

At that time, many commentators gave the deal a big thumbs up, anticipating that it would mark the start of another move higher in the long-running boom in listed property shares, dominated by Real Estate Investment Trusts, or REITs.

Others took note of the fact that the chairman and largest shareholder of EOP was Sam Zell. He is a well-known "vulture investor" with a longstanding reputation for buying cheap and selling dear, who stood to receive more than $90 million for his 1.9 million share stake.

While it may be too soon to say for sure, the relative performance of other shares in the sector after the deal was agreed upon suggests the cynics may have been right. Since February 7, the date Blackstone confirmed it had "won," the Dow Jones U.S. Real Estate Index has underperformed the S&P 500 Index by more than 10.5%.

With all the excitement about mega billion-dollar deals, a torrent of mergers and acquisitions activity, and the rocket-like trajectory of the private equity boom, it makes you wonder about who the real "smart money" is nowadays.

Michael Panzner is a 25-year veteran of the global stock, bond, and currency markets and the author of Financial Armageddon: Protecting Your Future from Four Impending Catastrophes and The New Laws of the Stock Market Jungle: An Insider's Guide to Successful Investing in a Changing World.

Back in late November, Central Parking Corporation (NYSE: CPC) retained The Blackstone Group to explore "strategic alternatives to enhance stockholder value."

Basically, this is finance-speak for a company that wants to sell out.

Well, today, a deal got done. Central Parking has accepted a buyout for $733 million. The buyers include a variety of private equity firms: KKR, Lubert-Adler and Chrysalis Capital Partners.

Central Parking operates more than 3,100 parking facilities in 37 states, as well as a variety of countries (such as Spain, Greece and the UK). In the latest quarterly report, revenues increased 3% to $272.4 million. Net income was $9.2 million.

With private equity support, the company should now have access large amounts of capital to continue investing in more properties.

On the news of the deal, the stock price increased only 4.34%. But keep in mind that since the company announced its hiring of Blackstone, the stock has surged 31%.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.