The Blackstone Group

The Blackstone Group L.P. is a publicly traded US-based investment company with headquarters in New York City.

The value of the holdings of the company as at 30 September 2011 ( 2008) at 157.7 ( 116.3 ) billion U.S. dollars.

Company Profile

The Blackstone Group employed late September 2008, 93 senior managers and 780 additional consultants in New York's main office 345 Park Avenue and additional offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Dusseldorf, Hong Kong, Houston, London, Los Angeles, Menlo Park, Mumbai, Paris, San Francisco, and Tokyo.

The company is divided into four business areas Corporate Private Equity, Real Estate, Marketable Alternative Asset Management and Financial Advisory.

The Chairman of the Supervisory Board is chaired by the founder of Stephen A. Schwarzman, the chief executive officer is also the same.

The end of 2007 Blackstone has been involved in a total of 44 companies.

• Industry: TRW Automotive, Nalco, Freescale Semiconductor
• Glass: Gerresheimer
• Media and entertainment industry: Merlin Entertainments Group, Universal Orlando Resort, Cineworld, Houghton Mifflin, SeaWorld
• Energy and Waste Management: Allied Waste, Texas Genco
• Packing: Graham Packaging
• Telecommunications: German Telekom stake of 4.5%
• Finance: Allianz SE, equity share of 5.3 %
• Healthcare: Southern Cross Healthcare
• Gastronomy: Spirit Group
• Plastics Industry: Klöckner Pentaplast
• Fashion: Jack Wolfskin
• Hospitality Industry: Hilton Hotels ( IV/2007 ), close cooperation in the German hotel market with the Event Hotel Group, 2007 Purchase of the former Inter Hotels of the GDR

According to information Blackstone plans to increasingly doing business in Europe. In the " International Advisory Board " of the company, therefore, among other things, Roland Berger (as "Chairman of Blackstone Germany" ), and Ron Summers are represented.

History

The company was founded in 1985 by former U.S. Secretary of Commerce Peter George Peterson, who had retired in 2008 from the company, and Stephen A. Schwarzman of.

The end of 2004, the Company acquired 31,000 flats by the holding company for WCM 1.4 billion euros. These were to the housing stock of the Kiel housing association with 9500 apartments. Furthermore, around 3800 flats in Wuppertal, 5800 in Mönchengladbach region and 500 in other regions.

End of April 2006 Blackstone acquired for 2.68 billion euros a 4.6 percent stake in Deutsche Telekom by the state-owned Bank for Reconstruction ( KfW), which holds a further 17.5 percent stake in Telekom. Blackstone undertook to hold the shares for at least two years.

On November 19, 2006, a merger agreement was signed between Blackstone and the American real estate company Equity Office Properties. The transaction should have a volume of 36 billion U.S. dollars. In February 2007, the largest ever leveraged buyout came including debt for 39 billion U.S. dollars to pass.

Against the opposition of the U.S. Senate was held on 22 June 2007, the IPO of Blackstone Group at an issue price of 31 U.S. dollars on the New York Stock Exchange instead. The demand for shares exceeded supply of 133 million shares by about 6-fold. The IPO reached 4.13 billion U.S. dollars. Since then the stock is traded under the symbol BX.

Even prior to the IPO has been reported involving a Chinese sovereign wealth fund in the amount of three billion U.S. dollars. The China Investment Corporation secured 9.3 per cent of the shares of Blackstone.

In July 2007, Blackstone acquired the Hilton Hotel chain, and thus became the fourth-largest hotel operator in the world. With a total cost of 26 billion U.S. dollars, the transaction is the largest acquisition in the tourism industry.

In the wake of the financial crisis, the Blackstone Group had to report millions in several quarterly losses. The value of the stock had temporarily lost compared to the IPO in June 2007, more than 90 percent of its value, but in the meantime recovered somewhat (as of April 2012).

In October 2011 it was announced that Blackstone 44 % of the shares of Holding Salzburg ACM wants to take over project development of Leica Camera.

Criticism

There has been criticism that in connection with the acquisition of thousands of public housing apartments investments are now " wasted " on the open market.

Investment companies such as the Blackstone Group in 2005 were the occasion for the locusts debate in Germany in April. Franz Müntefering then spoke of financial investors as " locusts". Due to the increasing investment in Germany the co-founder and current CEO of The Blackstone Group Stephen A. Schwarzman took it with respect and asked the German Chancellor Angela Merkel in November 2006, as it might be, then, that he would considered by a minister of their cabinets as an insect.

Also in the discussion of very high executive salaries the company name was called at the forefront. Stephen A. Schwarzman So received in 2006, $ 398.3 million, in 2007, 350 million, and for 2008 it was even $ 702 million.