The Blackstone Group (Europe)

ABOUT THIS COMPANY:

 M&A beginnings, PE powerhouse

The Blackstone Group was founded as an M&A boutique in 1985 by Stephen A. Schwarzman and Peter G. Peterson, two former Lehman Brothers bankers. At Lehman, Schwarzman was the chairman of mergers and acquisitions, and Peterson was chief executive of the firm. Despite the two’s top-level clout, Blackstone’s early days were humble. When the firm first opened in New York City it had a startup-sized staff of four and a modest balance sheet of $400,000. However, the group of four persevered, and Blackstone completed its initial public offering in June 2007, raising $4 billion dollars. At the time, it was the largest U.S. IPO since 2002. Today, the firm has offices across the U.S., in New York, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Menlo Park, Calif. It also has international outposts in cities such as London, Paris, Dublin, Dusseldorf, Istanbul, Mumbai, Dubai, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney, Seoul and Tokyo.  The firm’s global headquarters remains in New York City, in prestigious offices on Manhattan’s Park Avenue. As an investment and advisory firm, Blackstone says it maintains a small firm in order to give senior-level attention to investors and clients, and engages only in friendly takeovers rather than in hostile bids. The firm mainly operates in alternative asset investing, such as private equity, real estate, credit, and hedge funds, but also has a small but strong financial advisory and restructuring advisory business as well as a placement agent business. In addition, it invests significant amounts of its own money into all of its investment products. The firm is a renowned market leader in private equity and real estate investing.  Its hedge funds solutions business is the largest player in hedge fund products, and it has one of the leading alternative credit businesses in the world. Blackstone employs 1,661 people and is still led by one of its co-founders Stephen Schwarzman, who serves as Blackstone’s chairman and CEO.