Blackstone Raises More Than $4B in Initial Public Offering
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Blackstone Group LP, the buyout firm that made almost $200 billion of acquisitions in the past two decades, raised $4.13 billion in the largest American initial public offering in five years.
Blackstone, founded by former Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. executives Stephen Schwarzman and Peter Peterson in 1985 with $400,000, sold 133.3 million shares for $31 each, valuing the firm at $33.5 billion, said two people involved in arranging the IPO. The New York-based company expected to get $29 to $31 a share, according to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
“It’s taking a private company public and that’s exactly what Wall Street is good at, creating new products out of old ones,” the chief executive officer of New York-based buyout firm Lightyear Capital LLC, Donald Marron, said in an interview.
Blackstone’s profit more than doubled in the first quarter to $1.13 billion, 15% less than the firm made in all of 2005, according to SEC filings. Buyout firms have spent $535 billion on acquisitions this year, more than double the amount in the same period last year. Blackstone’s biggest competitors, New York-based Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Carlyle Group in Washington, are also considering IPOs.
