Blackstone eyes brass ring

If CNBC is right, Blackstone is getting set to follow in the footsteps of the successful Fortress hedge fund IPO of last month. Whether or not a fund is a good investment for individual investors has been discussed here in the past.

What really peakes my interest in this phenom is this:

If the public markets are such a brutal place to be — Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, disclosure, increased costs, painful shareholder class action lawsuits, etc. — and this is causing the current private equity boom as so many public company CEOs are deciding they need to go private…why are the private equity and hedge funds (at their peak of being able to raise pension fund and institutional money at a whim) deciding they need to be public themselves?

Could it be that there are currently 53 new power yachts >150′ currently available for sale around the world?? With a price range of US$5 million to over US$210 million? And if you don’t mind a yacht with a few miles on it, there are 367 power versions to choose from over 150 feet in length.

Blackstone’s founders will just have to wait for that escrow period to end.

BTW, Fortress (FIG-NYSE) is down only $2 from the time that most retail investors were able to buy it on the board in the $28s on the first trading day of their February IPO. (But the Fortress escrow period is just 11 months away before the Ft. Lauderdale boat brokers can hope to place a mega Yacht off the Hamptons. One of the boats for sale even has a helicopter pad, suitable for the short flight from NYC at 4:01 pm on a Friday afternoon.)

MRM