BX - The Blackstone Group Inc.
| Previous Close | 52.24 |
| Open | 52.40 |
| Bid | 53.45 x 1400 |
| Ask | 53.65 x 1400 |
| Day's Range | 52.30 - 54.19 |
| 52 Week Range | 26.88 - 54.19 |
| Volume | 9,426,909 |
| Avg. Volume | 6,870,558 |
| Market Cap | 63.998B |
| Beta (3Y Monthly) | 1.57 |
| PE Ratio (TTM) | 36.96 |
| EPS (TTM) | 1.45 |
| Earnings Date | Oct 16, 2019 - Oct 21, 2019 |
| Forward Dividend & Yield | 1.92 (3.68%) |
| Ex-Dividend Date | 2019-07-26 |
| 1y Target Est | 52.25 |
- Financial Times
Blackstone seals $4.7bn deal to buy Canada’s Dream Global Reit
Blackstone has clinched a deal to buy Canadian real estate investment trust Dream Global valuing the owner of office properties across western Europe at C$6.2bn ($4.7bn). is the largest-ever for a real estate fund, and increases the war chest Blackstone has amassed to invest in property to more than $36bn. Dream Global’s assets include over 200 office space and warehouse properties in more than 100 cities across western Europe, with a large presence in Germany and the Netherlands.
- Reuters
Dream Global REIT to be bought by Blackstone funds in $4.7 billion deal
Blackstone will pay C$16.79 cash per Dream Global unit to acquire all of the office and industrial property manager's subsidiaries and assets, the Toronto-listed firm said. "This transaction is an exciting opportunity for Blackstone to expand its existing office and logistics portfolios in some of the largest and most important markets in the region," the head of Blackstone Real Estate Europe, James Seppala, was quoted as saying in the statement. Blackstone's financial advisers are RBC Capital Markets, BNP Paribas, and Deutsche Bank Securities Inc, while Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP are acting as its legal counsel.
- Barrons.com
Don’t React to the Market Out of Fear, Says a Top Financial Advisor
The story behind Lisette Cooper’s $5.8 billion advisory business, Athena Capital Advisors, begins in the sterile laboratories at Harvard University, where she studied isotope geochemistry. After Merrill, Cooper built risk-controlled investment strategies for MSCI Barra until 1993, when she launched Lincoln, Mass.–based Athena with a book of institutional business.
- Zacks
Mitsubishi's (MUFG) Lending Arm to Introduce Online Platform
Mitsubishi's (MUFG) lending arm, MUFG, plans to introduce an online platform for its clients this month to boost its network outside Asia.
- Bloomberg
A Fond Farewell to T. Boone Pickens
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- I used to tell people that I was in the room when the 1980s – the bull-market-greed-is-good ‘80s – began. It was June 1982, and the room was a luxe Waldorf Towers suite leased by Lazard Freres. An investment banker at the firm had loaned the suite to a Texas oilman named T. Boone Pickens Jr., the founder and chief executive of Mesa Petroleum, based in Amarillo, Texas.Boone, who had a big reputation in Texas, and virtually no reputation outside it, was making an audacious play: He was trying to take over Cities Service, a company ten times Mesa’s size. And I was sitting right next to him, watching him try.I had just turned 30, a new staff writer at Texas Monthly. Boone was 54. Profiling him was my first assignment, even though I knew nothing about business. Then again, he didn’t know much about hostile takeovers. One thing I understand now is that he and his team – which included a very young Hamilton James, who went on to become a senior executive at the Blackstone Group Inc. – were improvising, every step of the way.Of course, back then you could count on one hand the people who knew how to do a hostile takeover. It was all new – and corporate America wasn’t happy about it. Men like Boone weren’t called “shareholder activists;” they were called “corporate raiders” or “greenmailers.” There were investment banks (Goldman Sachs was one, as I recall) that refused to advise anyone attempting a hostile takeover. Chief executives wouldn’t dream of trying to buy a company that didn’t want to be bought – if for no other reason than it was impolite. The price of the stock was low on their list of priorities.What I wind up reflecting on now, as I think about Boone, who died on Wednesday at the age of 91, is the role he played in the revolution that has taken place in the way companies think and operate. Michael Jensen, a finance professor at the University of Rochester, is usually given credit for laying the foundation for the modern emphasis on shareholder value. But few people in the executive suites or on Wall Street knew who Jensen was.They knew who Boone was, though. He -- and Carl Icahn, and a small handful of others -- loudly proclaimed that everything they were doing was in the interest of shareholders. It was the rationale for their raids. Boone used to lecture me back then: Joe, he’d say, CEOs don’t own the company. The shareholders do. People used to ask me whether this was just something he said to justify his takeover plays. No, I would reply, he really means it.Boone made five hostile takeovers in the 1980s. He didn’t land any of his targets, but he did become a public figure. When he went after Gulf Oil in 1984, he received the first-ever “highly confident” letter from Michael Milken (meaning that Milken would be able to raise enough in junk bonds to pay for the deal). That same deal also got him on the cover of Time magazine, with an illustration showing him playing high stakes poker. Thus did he help usher in another facet of modern business: the risk-taking, swashbuckling, larger-than-life businessman. It’s not too much to say that Elon Musk is an heir.For the next 20 years – and I can also see this more clearly than I could at the time – Boone struggled. He started a shareholder rights organization, but it didn’t go anywhere. He had a tight-knit group of young whipper-snappers who had worked on his deals, but one by one, they left. He got into petty feuds with various people in Amarillo, including the editor of the newspaper. At one point, he had the idea of selling rights to the water under his ranch to Dallas or San Antonio. He was damned if he was going to sell it to Amarillo.By the mid-1990s, he was in the middle of a horrific divorce and was suffering from depression. Mesa had been borrowing money to pay to shareholders – he wanted to show that he put his money where his mouth was – but the company was going broke. Richard Rainwater and his wife, Darla Moore, made a deal to restructure the company. They did, and then – much to Boone’s surprise -- they tossed him out.What followed was what I think of as the most astonishing part of his career. In 1997, Boone set up shop in Dallas and started an energy hedge fund. He raised $27 million from friends in Texas, and put in another $10 million of his own money. By the end of 1999, the fund had dwindled to $4.4 million.And then? Then, the price of natural gas started to go up, and the value of Boone’s fund soared. It helped immensely that he finally put his divorce behind him, and that he got on antidepressants for a short time. In the office he was sharp again, something he hadn’t been in years. He was also, for the first time in his life, a billionaire.As for me, that story I wrote about him in 1982 changed my life. I became enthralled with business, and it became my beat. When Boone got a big contract to write his autobiography in 1986, he hired me to be his ghostwriter. But I had too much ego to be a good ghost, and he had too much ego to let me write his book. He fired me halfway through the project, and I sued him for the money I felt I was owed. Although we quickly settled, we were estranged for the next decade.One day I got a note from him, about a story I had written for Fortune magazine. He thanked me for something I had written about shareholders. I took it to mean that he wanted to reconnect, so I went to visit him. He told me about his depression, and his divorce, and the therapy he was in with his grown children, with whom he had never had an easy relationship. “Joe,” I remember him saying, “never say no to therapy.”From then on, we were friends. There were things he did that bothered me immensely, especially funding the Swift Boat attacks on John Kerry during the 2004 presidential election. But there were also things he did late in his life that I really admire. His effort to move the country as much as possible away from coal and oil, and towards natural gas, is high on that list. His critics used to complain that he was talking his own book, but so what? He believed in natural gas with all his heart.I went to visit him in Dallas in November 2016, by which time he was 88. He sat in his conference room having his daily meeting with his aides and traders while they analyzed the latest energy trends. Why was Exxon Mobil Corp’s stock rising? Were rising gasoline prices affecting motorists? What were the Saudis going to do? Boone wore hearing aids and sometimes had to lean in to understand what was being said, but he was still very much the decision-maker. “Boone,” said one of his guys, “has balls like nobody I’ve ever known.”A month later, Boone had the first in a series of strokes. He was soon using a walker, and struggling with his speech. The last time I saw him was a year ago, at his ranch. It was difficult to watch him; in addition to his physical problems, you could see that he had things he wanted to say but just couldn’t get the words out.One afternoon, Boone had someone drive him around the part of the property that had wells – yes, Boone drilled for oil and gas on his ranch – and that seemed to perk him up. He employed a full-time geologist, and after we’d visited a few wells, we went into a big room where one wall was papered over with an enormous map of the ranch’s geological formations. The geologist started to explain a few things, but Boone interrupted her. For about ten minutes, he talked without trouble. For me, it was a nice moment.When I first met Boone in 1982, he quickly sized me up as “an East Coast liberal.”“You probably don’t know many conservatives,” he said (correctly). “I’m going to show you that a conservative can be a good guy.”And he did, too. Rest in peace, Boone.To contact the author of this story: Joe Nocera at jnocera3@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Timothy L. O'Brien at tobrien46@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Joe Nocera is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering business. He has written business columns for Esquire, GQ and the New York Times, and is the former editorial director of Fortune. His latest project is the Bloomberg-Wondery podcast "The Shrink Next Door."For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Financial Times
Blackstone’s firepower faces test in tougher property market
The rapid restructuring of the then record buyout deal, which Blackstone had sealed in 2007 even as the first signs of the financial crisis were stirring, helped the US private equity firm skirt disaster and eventually reap a $14bn profit. “It ended up being the largest private equity profit instead of the largest private equity bust,” said Chris Nassetta, Hilton’s chief executive. The division is closing in on Blackstone’s traditional buyout business in size, but has also come under fire for an aggressive push into the home rentals market in the US.
- Reuters
Blackstone raises $20.5 billion for largest ever real estate fund
Large buyout firms such as Blackstone have been attracting a lot of capital from investors seeking higher returns not available in public markets. Blackstone said in a statement the fund, named Blackstone Real Estate Partners IX (BREP IX), has already made its first investment: the purchase of U.S. industrial warehouse properties from Singapore-based logistics provider GLP for $18.7 billion. Blackstone is the world's largest alternative asset manager and one of the biggest property investors, with $154 billion in real estate assets under management.
- Bloomberg
Hong Kong Exchange Makes Unsolicited $36.6 Billion LSE Bid
(Bloomberg) -- Want the lowdown on European markets? In your inbox before the open, every day. Sign up here.Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd. made an unexpected $36.6 billion bid for London Stock Exchange Group Plc, a bold move that would upend the U.K. bourse’s combination with Refinitiv.LSE’s board “remains committed to” the acquisition of data provider Refinitiv, highlighting the hurdles facing an offer that it called unsolicited, preliminary and highly conditional. The board said it would consider the proposal and make a further announcement later.LSE’s shares pared earlier gains, reflecting skepticism that a deal can be done in the face of unrest in Hong Kong and potential concern over Chinese ownership. LSE executives and investors may also view the $27 billion takeover of Refinitiv, aimed as a push into financial data, as a more secure future than a multi-continental combination of stock exchange operators. For HKEX, the bet on London remaining a post-Brexit financial hub promises a base away from the increasingly fraught political climate at home.Under the proposal, HKEX would offer 2,045 pence as well as 2.495 newly issued HKEX shares per LSE share. That values each LSE share at 8,361 pence, the Hong Kong bourse said in its statement. The U.K. company’s stock closed 5.9% higher at 7,206 pence on Wednesday in London, after earlier surging as much as 16%.The LSE is leaning toward rejecting the Hong Kong bid, the Financial Times reported, citing two people close to the board.The Asian bourse operator had considered the “ambitious and far-reaching” deal for one of Europe’s largest exchanges for many months, HKEX Chief Executive Officer Charles Li said in a statement Wednesday.Data DominanceThe Refinitiv deal was a bet by LSE on a future dominated by data, as the three-century-old exchange looks for ways to extend its global reach. Acquiring Refinitiv, the former financial and risk unit of Thomson Reuters, would help the London bourse expand further into data analysis.An HKEX-LSE pact would put an end to the Refinitiv purchase, instead creating a global trading power that would have stock, derivatives and commodities exchanges, as well as clearinghouses across two continents.A successful takeover by HKEX would scupper plans by Blackstone Group Inc., which was part of a group that bought a majority stake in Refinitiv last year and would double its money if the LSE deal goes through.In a media call after the bid was announced, Li said HKEX’s offer was “something fundamentally different” to the Refinitiv tie-up for LSE and its shareholders.“Superior growth, superior strategic prospects and tremendously different and enhanced value creation for shareholders,” he said. “Growth prospects for both companies, and strategic positioning for both cities.”Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News and Bloomberg Intelligence, competes with Refinitiv and Thomson Reuters to provide financial news, data and information.European exchange operators have outperformed the broader market this year, with LSE surging 77%, Euronext NV up 38% and Deutsche Boerse AG rising 30%.Both HKEX and LSE have been involved in dealmaking in recent years, with the latter failing in its attempt to combine with Deutsche Boerse and HKEX acquiring London Metal Exchange in 2012 for 1.4 billion pounds ($1.73 billion).LSE’s efforts to merge with Deutsche Boerse were ultimately scuppered by political considerations. HKEX’s proposed move could fall at the same hurdle, said Ronald Wan, chief executive at Partners Capital International Ltd. in Hong Kong.“A takeover from Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China, could be seen as a takeover from China. It won’t be easy to clear all the regulatory hurdles -- the deal is super politically sensitive,” he said.U.K. Business Secretary Andrea Leadsom, speaking on Bloomberg Television as news of the deal broke, said the British government would scrutinize any tie-up between the exchanges. Leadsom said the U.K. authorities would “look very carefully at anything that had security implications for the U.K.”HKEX was created in 2000 after the merger of stock and derivatives exchanges in Hong Kong. The company went public later that year.Li said earlier this year in the company’s latest strategic plan that HKEX aims to be “globally connected,” while being “China anchored.” In recent years he has tied his business more closely to the Chinese mainland, in particular with the start of stock and bond trading links to markets in Shanghai and Shenzhen.As well as its iconic stock exchange, LSE runs businesses including the world’s biggest over-the-counter derivatives clearinghouse, LCH Ltd.; index provider FTSE Russell; a European share trading venue called Turquoise; and Borsa Italia.Hong Kong lawmaker and HKEX shareholder Christopher Cheung said he was most concerned that HKEX might overpay. Cheung, a veteran broker, said in an interview that he thinks it’s getting harder for HKEX to start more trading links with China, citing U.S.-China trade tensions and the recent protests in the city against growing influence from Beijing.“If Hong Kong cannot count on itself to maintain its status as an international finance center, it is only natural to seek horizontal, inorganic growth through acquisition,” he said by phone.(Updates with FT report that LSE may reject the bid in the fifth paragraph)\--With assistance from Harry Wilson, Sofia Horta e Costa and Moxy Ying.To contact the reporters on this story: Kiuyan Wong in Hong Kong at kwong739@bloomberg.net;Viren Vaghela in London at vvaghela1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Candice Zachariahs at czachariahs2@bloomberg.net, ;Ambereen Choudhury at achoudhury@bloomberg.net, Sam Mamudi, Keith CampbellFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Business Wire
Blackstone Announces $20.5 Billion Final Close for Latest Global Real Estate Fund
Blackstone today announced the final close of its latest global real estate fund, Blackstone Real Estate Partners IX . BREP IX has $20.5 billion of total capital commitments — the largest real estate fund ever raised.
- Business Wire
Blackstone Hires Raymond Chan as a Portfolio Manager for Registered Funds Platform
Blackstone (BX) today announced that Raymond Chan has joined the firm as a Managing Director on the Portfolio Management and Investment Research team in Blackstone Alternative Asset Management (BAAM). Raymond will serve as a portfolio manager for BAAM’s registered funds platform. Prior to Blackstone, Raymond spent fifteen years at Goldman Sachs, most recently as a Managing Director in Global Portfolio Solutions, the multi-asset investing group within Goldman Sachs Asset Management.
- Zacks
5 Reasons to Add Ameriprise (AMP) Stock to Your Portfolio
Driven by strong fundamentals and bright growth prospects, Ameriprise (AMP) seems to be an attractive investment option right now.
- Business Wire
Blackstone Completes Senior Notes Offering
Blackstone (BX) has completed its previously announced offering of $500 million of 2.500% senior notes due 2030 and $400 million of 3.500% senior notes due 2049 of Blackstone Holdings Finance Co. L.L.C., its indirect subsidiary. The notes are fully and unconditionally guaranteed by The Blackstone Group Inc. and its indirect subsidiaries, Blackstone Holdings I L.P., Blackstone Holdings AI L.P., Blackstone Holdings II L.P., Blackstone Holdings III L.P. and Blackstone Holdings IV L.P. Blackstone intends to use the proceeds from the notes offering, together with cash on hand or available liquidity, to repurchase any and all of its outstanding 5.875% Senior Notes due 2021 (the “2021 Notes”) pursuant to a tender offer and/or to redeem any of the 2021 Notes that remain outstanding thereafter and to pay related fees and expenses.
- Business Wire
Blackstone Announces Expiration and Results of Tender Offer for Any and All of Its 5.875% Senior Notes Due 2021
Blackstone (BX) today announced the expiration and results of the previously announced cash tender offer by Blackstone Holdings Finance Co. L.L.C. (the “Company”) for any and all of its 5.875% Senior Notes due 2021 (the “Notes”). The tender offer expired at 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on September 9, 2019 (the “Expiration Date”). According to information provided by Global Bondholder Services Corporation, the depositary and information agent for the tender offer, $174,555,000 aggregate principal amount of the Notes were validly tendered prior to or at the Expiration Date and not validly withdrawn.
- Moody's
Tribe Buyer LLC -- Moody's downgrades Tradesmen's CFR to B3; outlook stable
At the same time, Moody's downgraded the instrument ratings on Tradesmen's senior secured first lien revolving credit facility and senior secured first lien term loan to B3 from B2. The outlook is stable.
- Moody's
Cheniere Energy Partners, L.P. -- Moody's assigns a Ba2 rating to Cheniere Energy Partners, L.P's $1.0 billion bond offering
Moody's Investors Service (Moody's) assigned a Ba2 rating to Cheniere Energy Partners, L.P's (CQP) $1.0 billion senior unsecured note offering. Proceeds from the offering will be used to refinance and retire CQP's $750 million senior secured term loan facility and for general corporate purposes including prefunding a portion of the costs associated with construction of Train 6 at Sabine Pass Liquefaction LLC (SPL: Baa3, stable). A $750 million senior secured revolving credit facility, currently undrawn, provides liquidity support for construction costs and general corporate purposes.
- Business Wire
Blackstone Announces Pricing of Tender Offer for Any and All of Its 5.875% Senior Notes Due 2021
Blackstone (BX) today announced the pricing of the previously announced cash tender offer by Blackstone Holdings Finance Co. L.L.C. (the “Company”) for any and all of its 5.875% Senior Notes due 2021 listed in the table below (the “Notes”). The tender offer is being made on the terms and subject to the conditions set forth in the offer to purchase dated September 3, 2019 and the related letter of transmittal and notice of guaranteed delivery. The tender offer will expire at 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on September 9, 2019, unless extended or earlier terminated as described in the offer to purchase (such time and date, as they may be extended, the “Expiration Time”).
- Business Wire
Blackstone to Name Vik Sawhney Chief Administrative Officer, Global Head of Investor Relations and Business Development
Blackstone (BX) announced today that Vik Sawhney, Chief Operating Officer of Blackstone’s private equity business, will become the firm’s first Chief Administrative Officer and Global Head of Investor Relations and Business Development (IRBD), effective January 1, 2020. As CAO, Mr. Sawhney will report to Blackstone President and COO, Jon Gray, to assist in day-to-day operations of the firm.
- Zacks
Blackstone Group (BX) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know
Blackstone Group (BX) closed the most recent trading day at $50.37, moving +0.58% from the previous trading session.
- American City Business Journals
Kilroy Realty's top Bay Area biotech exec departs
A top Bay Area executive has departed from Kilroy Realty Corp., one of the region’s biggest landlords. Tracy Murphy resigned after three years of serving as executive vice president for life science, the company said. The Southern California resident recently started as president of Creative Science Properties, a San Diego-based biotech real estate development firm started by her former colleagues at BioMed Realty.
- Moody's
Vungle Inc. -- Moody's assigns first-time B2 CFR to Vungle Inc.; outlook stable
Moody's Investors Service (Moody's) assigned a B2 Corporate Family Rating ("CFR") and B2-PD Probability of Default Rating to Vungle Inc. (Vungle) in connection with a pending buyout. Moody's also assigned a B2 instrument rating to the proposed 1st lien senior secured credit facility (5-year revolver and 7-year term loan). Proceeds from the proposed debt issuance plus new equity from funds associated with Blackstone Group L.P. will be used to fund the acquisition of Vungle Inc. as well as pay transaction fees.
- Investor's Business Daily
Here's Why Hilton Employees Love Working With CEO Chris Nassetta
Chris Nassetta brought Hilton Worldwide Holdings back from near-death by creating a culture that rewards employees to provide great hotel service.
- Business Wire
Blackstone Prices $900 Million Senior Notes Offering
Blackstone (BX) priced its offering of $500 million of 2.500% senior notes due 2030 and $400 million of 3.500% senior notes due 2049 of Blackstone Holdings Finance Co. L.L.C., its indirect subsidiary. The notes will be fully and unconditionally guaranteed by The Blackstone Group Inc. and its indirect subsidiaries, Blackstone Holdings I L.P., Blackstone Holdings AI L.P., Blackstone Holdings II L.P., Blackstone Holdings III L.P. and Blackstone Holdings IV L.P. Blackstone intends to use the proceeds from the notes offering, together with cash on hand or available liquidity, to repurchase any and all of its outstanding 5.875% Senior Notes due 2021 (the “2021 Notes”) pursuant to a tender offer and/or to redeem any of the 2021 Notes that remain outstanding thereafter and to pay related fees and expenses.
- American City Business Journals
JW Marriott Desert Ridge sold to New York, Hawaii investment firms
The JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort & Spa, the largest resort in Phoenix, was recently acquired for a reported $602 million. A joint venture between two investment firms – New York-based Elliott Management Corp. and Hawaii-based Trinity Real Estate Investments LLC – said Tuesday it purchased the 396-acre resort in north Phoenix from New York-based Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX), which owned it under the name BRE Thunder Desert Ridge Property Owner LLC. “We managed to purchase this trophy asset at an attractive basis well below replacement cost, reflecting our ability to source and close deals that align with our strict investment parameters,” Sean Hehir, managing partner at Trinity, said in a statement. “We look forward to applying our proven value-add platform to drive enhanced operational and financial performance.” Blackstone purchased the 950-room JW Marriott Desert Ridge in 2015 as part of a $1.3 billion deal that included a JW Marriott and a Ritz-Carlton in Orlando.
