After all the hemming and hawing, and all the publicity and tabloid-esque coverage of the deal…..It’s finally happened.  The Blackstone Group, L.P. sent out a news bulletin after today’s close with the details of its PRICED Initial Public Offering.  It has priced 133,333,334 million units at a price of $31.00 per unit.  The units will begin trading Friday, June 22, 2007 under the ticker "BX" on the NYSE.

The global coordinators are Morgan Stanley and Citigroup.  The joint book running managers are listed as Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse, Lehman Brothers, and Deutsche Bank.

Assuming that the last straw  today where Representative Henry Waxman’s letter sent to the SEC to ask for a delay in the IPO doesn’t matter, then we’ll see this begin trading tomorrow.

There were multiple reports that KKR had also hired two investment banks to pursue a similar IPO filing.  The demand for Blackstone was easily there and many reports had the deal being more than seven-times oversubscribed.  It looks like Schwarzman’s tabloid-esque coverage of late, the private equity going public gossip, the negative press, and even the political wranglings invloved didn’t kill the deal.

We’ll say with finality that "It’s a done deal" once we see the trades begin Friday.  Until then, stay tuned.

Jon C. Ogg
June 21, 2007

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

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