What a joke. I only hope the best for anyone that buys into this, but may their higher power look out for what their intellectual capability apparently can't. This is the top of the market for private equity. I know there will be people that will disagree with me, just like when they were telling me Fortress was a steal when it ran up to $37 on its IPO date. Blah, blah, blah... Private equity is the latest fashion. All fashions eventually go out of style. If someone really wanted to own a piece of this, why wouldn't they just buy Morgan Stanley or Goldman, by which their is a clearer picture of what the deal is, what the accountability level is (as meager as it may be), and there is a known track record of earnings and growth, filed under stricter accounting standards?
I posted this in another thread today, but it's equally applicable here, and may help some people dig up some truth about how well private equity returns compare to other investment vehicles: HAPPY RETURNS Steven E. Kaplan of the University of Chicago, perhaps the leading academic expert on private equity, and Antoinette Schoar of M.I.T., conclude that, after accounting for fees, the average private equity firms essentially turns in the same performance of the S&P 500.: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....tract_id=473341
I don't know if a tree makes a sound in the forest if no one is around, but.... ...is a private equity firm private if it files an application to offer public shares to be traded on the open market?
But Blackstone and other firms also have become lightning rods for criticism. Detractors say they strip-mine companies by saddling them with crushing debt while making enormous payouts to themselves. Despite a heavy snow storm on the East Coast on Friday, Wall Street was buzzing with speculation about why a firm that takes companies private would itself contemplate going public. Marc Morgenstern, a San Francisco lawyer and veteran dealmaker, said going public would allow Blackstone's founders to seamlessly cash out their stakes when they retire and would let the firm compensate employees with stock options. It also would give Blackstone a war chest with which to buy other private equity firms, or for emergencies if the market turns down. "It's always a good idea to take money off the table when you can, and you don't always know when you can," Morgenstern said. Morgenstern and others said that Blackstone did not need the money to do deals, and that that probably was not its primary motivation in going public. For individual investors, a Blackstone IPO would give them a chance to bet on a firm and a Wall Street trend that has until now been the domain of the well-heeled. But the deal also is likely to be richly priced. And some experts say Blackstone's willingness to go public may signal at least a short-term top in the market.