Blackstone's IPO: Top 5 Things Investors WANT to Know! -

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Jun.21

5:37 PM ET

Thursday, 21 Jun 2007

Blackstone's IPO: Top 5 Things Investors WANT to Know!

Posted By:Melissa Lee

On CNBC TV today, I have been talking about the top 5 things investors should know about the highly anticipated Blackstone IPO. (And, in case you're wondering, 5 was an arbitrary number.) Clearly, it was a very serious and informative piece of journalism.

Now, let's have some fun. Here are the top 5 things investors REALLY WANT to know about Blackstone's IPO. I don't have the answers to any of them unfortunately--but it's more fun to fantasize, isn't it?

Number One: What will the after-party be like?
At the very minimum, I would think there would be free-flowing stone crabs served by waiters without squeaky shoes. And a headline performer. Perhaps U2 (Beautiful Day)? OK Go (Invincible)? Kanye West (Gold Digger)?

Number Two: Will there be a Blackstone wealth ripple effect?
Think about the boatloads of money raised from the IPO. Yes, execs have a lockup period. But they've got to feel a little richer (that is, more fabulously wealthy versus their previous state of just fabulously wealthy). So let's apply trickle down economic theory: after the IPO, we could be looking at a hike in beachfront property prices, a boom in Ferrari sales, shortages of Park Avenue penthouses, and (gasp!) higher prices for stone crab! (I'm thinking stone crab will be a HUGE foodie fad for wannabe Steve Schwarzman's.)

Number Three: What will non-stakeholder employees get from the IPO?
Bragging rights, definitely. And if that's not enough, a t-shirt that reads, "My Private Equity Firm IPO'd and All I Got was a Lousy T-Shirt." But the t-shirt will be made of the finest Egyptian cotton.

Number Four: What will Pete Peterson do with his $1.8 billion payout?
$1.8B is a lot of dough. He could buy plenty of copies of the newly published book authored by his daughter, Holly. The book is called "The Manny," and is about Manhattan's super rich and the hiring of a male nanny (I wonder if there's anything autobiographical about this book). Check out the video take off of the book on YouTube.

Or, he could donate $1.8b to his cause celebre, his pet project, reducing the federal deficit. $1.8b down, $499b to go!

Number Five: Will Blackstone Buy Blackstone?
We hear a lot about firms going public, then private, then public again. Why not Blackstone? If the Blackstone bill becomes law and Blackstone has a looming grace period before it's tax bill balloons, it could pull off the biggest deal ever. It could take itself private.