Blackstone

The Blackstone Group Inc. is an American multinational private equity

The Blackstone Group Inc. is an American multinational private equity, alternative asset management and financial services firm based in New York City. As the largest alternative investment firm in the world, Blackstone specializes in private equity, credit and hedge fund investment strategies.

Blackstone's private equity business has been one of the largest investors in leveraged buyouts in the last decade, while its real estate business has actively acquired commercial real estate. Since its inception, Blackstone has invested in such notable companies as Hilton Worldwide, Merlin Entertainments Group, Performance Food Group, EQ Office, Republic Services, AlliedBarton, United Biscuits, Freescale Semiconductor, Vivint, and Travelport.

Blackstone was founded in 1985 as a mergers and acquisitions boutique by Peter G. Peterson and Stephen A. Schwarzman, who had previously worked together at Lehman Brothers. In 2007, Blackstone became a public company via a $4 billion initial public offering to become one of the first major private equity firms to list shares in its management company on the public stock market. Blackstone is headquartered at 345 Park Avenue in Manhattan, New York City, with eight additional offices in the United States, as well as offices in London, Paris, Dublin, Düsseldorf, Luxembourg, Sydney, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai, Mumbai, and Dubai.

As of 2019, the company's total assets under management were approximately US$ 470 billion dollars.:14 In April 2019, Blackstone disclosed it was converting to a corporation from a publicly traded partnership.

Founding and early history

The Blackstone Group was founded in 1985 by Peter G. Peterson and Stephen A. Schwarzman with $400,000 in seed capital. The founders named their firm "Blackstone", which was a cryptogram derived from the names of the two founders (Schwarzman and Peterson): "Schwarz" is German for "black"; "Peter", or "Petra" in Greek, means "stone" or "rock". The two founders had previously worked together at Lehman Brothers. At Lehman, Schwarzman served as head of Lehman Brothers' global mergers and acquisitions business. Prominent investment banker Roger C. Altman, another Lehman veteran, left his position as a managing director of Lehman Brothers to join Peterson and Schwarzman at Blackstone in 1987, but left in 1992 to join the Clinton Administration as Deputy Treasury Secretary.

Blackstone was originally formed as a mergers and acquisitions advisory boutique. Blackstone advised on the 1987 merger of investment banks E. F. Hutton & Co. and Lehman Brothers, collecting a $3.5 million fee.

From the outset in 1985, Schwarzman and Peterson planned to enter the private equity business, but had difficulty in raising their first fund because neither had ever led a leveraged buyout. Blackstone finalized fundraising for its first private equity fund in the aftermath of the October 1987 stock market crash. After two years of providing strictly advisory services, Blackstone decided to pursue a merchant banking model after its founders determined that many situations required an investment partner rather than just an advisor. The largest investors in the first fund included Prudential Insurance Company, Nikko Securities and the General Motors pension fund.