Topic: How To Invest

Thank you for your excellent advice and your well-written newsletters. What is your opinion of the Blackstone Group?

Article Excerpt

The Blackstone Group LP, $36.61, symbol BX on New York (Shares outstanding: 520.5 million; Market cap: $21.5 billion; www.blackstone.com), is a global alternative asset manager and provider of financial advisory services. The company’s alternative asset management businesses include managing corporate private equity funds, real estate opportunity funds, hedge funds, mezzanine funds, senior debt funds and closed-end mutual funds. Mezzanine financing is a mixture of debt and equity financing that private companies use to fund expansion. Mezzanine debt gives the lender the right to convert the debt to equity if the borrower defaults. It typically entails less due diligence by the lender, and the borrower puts up little or no collateral. Blackstone’s financial services business provides advice on mergers and acquisitions and corporate restructurings. The company has over $284 billion of assets under management, with $215 billion of that in fee-earning funds. Blackstone continues to raise funds, including $13 billion in the third quarter of 2014. It now has over $40 billion of readily investable cash…