Blackstone Expedites IPO Date (BX)

Blackstone Group LP (BX-NYSE) is now expecting to price its IPO on this Thursday evening for a Friday trade date, one week earlier than originally planned.  The company has apparently ended the road show on more than enough demand for its shares.  The good news is that this means all that negative publicity and all of the preemptive tax issues are not killing the stock.  This is also probably to stem all of the pre-IPO coverage around the company itself rather a key individual who keeps staying in the media.

The IPO is expected to be in the $4 Billion area raised as the company is selling roughly a 12% stake in partnership units at an indicated price of $29.00 to $31.00.  Last week we made a note that the press media giving near-Tabloid coverage to it could affect valuations and could even impact the timing.  Perhaps this will curb that notion.

Depending on how this is received, you are likely to see more private equity firms and hedge funds come public later this summer.  The only ‘recent’ IPO even close to this was the earlier IPO for Fortress Investment Group LLC (FIG-NYSE).  There are many other private equity and public investment firms that have been public for some time, and here is a list if you would like to review: American Capital Strategies (ACAS-NASDAQ), Allied Capital Corp (ALD-NYSE), Apollo Investment Corp (AINV-NASDAQ), and more.

Jon C. Ogg
June 19, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at [email protected]; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.