Aug 06 2008
blackstone in the news again… just barely.
But this time around, Blackstone Group isn’t causing a huge rupture on the internet about China taking a stake in Blackstone. In fact, you would barely even have noticed it in CNN Money’s recent article about Blackstone beating expectations. The article reads:
The company is also increasing its international focus. Blackstone announced the opening of a new office in China yesterday
Nonetheless, James noted that Blackstone could soon shift to making investments in the U.S. financial services sector, particularly regional banks that are desperate for capital as a result of rising loan losses.
Do you note something here? The author (or the editor) didn’t even bother to finish the sentence here about Blackstone’s “increased” international focus. Why? Perhaps because (1) this is probably pretty old news ever since China took a stake in Blackstone and (2) because all that they could write about was Blackstone opening a new office in China. With not much else in the way of details.
Here is an excerpt from Blackstone’s press release about its new Beijing office:
Commenting on the office opening and the appointment of Mr. Fu, Mr. Stephen A. Schwarzman, Chairman, CEO and Co- Founder, of Blackstone, said: “The opening of our Beijing office and the appointment of Shan further underlines our deep commitment to China and the Chinese market. We welcome Shan to the firm and we look forward to working together.”
Mr. Antony Leung, Blackstone’s Chairman for Greater China, added: “We see tremendous opportunities both in China and to partner with Chinese companies outside of China. The opening of our Beijing office and the appointment of Shan gives us another great resource to take advantage of those opportunities.”
In other words, we don’t have anything concrete to really write home about. Yet. Don’t get me wrong… I see Blackstone doing a lot with China in the future. Just not yet… and that’s the agonizing thing. You put out a press release. It even gets mentioned by CNN Money. No details. We’ll see what the future holds… just don’t hold your breath for too long. Hopefully something dramatic would happen soon to make me eat my words.
