Steve Schwarzman Is Not Freaking Out
In fact, he was "almost too relaxed,” one of my colleagues remarked, referencing Schwarzman’s appearance today at the PEA conference in New York. The founder of Blackstone Group was interviewed by Dow Jones’ Shasha Dai. And Dai didn’t toss out softball after softball. She opened by asking him about his personal feelings on Lehman’s collapse (Schwarzman got his start at Lehman; Dick Fuld was in his partner class). His answer, by the way, was a believable “It’s very sad.” She closed by asking about Blackstone's stock price, which has traded at close to a 50% discount since its IPO last year. He said Blackstone’s stock price was initially a scapegoat for the credit crisis, but that by this point the whole financial sector has been hit. The most interesting answer I heard was regarding the way Blackstone is going to deploy all that money.
