STEVE SCHWARZMAN STARTS WARMING UP

摘要

At the height of the private equity boom, no firm was flying higher than Blackstone Group, the juggernaut founded by Pete Peterson and Steve Schwarzman. In the past couple of years, Blackstone's profile has been considerably lower than it was in early 2007 when it paid $39 billion for Equity Office Properties in the biggest real estate buyout deal ever. Now, Blackstone is looking tanned, fit, and ready for action. On Nov. 6, Bloomberg reported that the publicly traded Blackstone posted a third-quarter profit of $275.3 million, and in a conference call, Schwarzman said the firm is planning eight or more initial public offerings of companies in its portfoliornin coming months.