What Do PE Execs Do on Fridays?
It’s a lazy late-spring Friday in New York. With the sun shining, and the weather nice, it’s hard to get anyone on the phone. So I wonder: what do PE execs do on Fridays? After covering M&A and buyouts for so many years, I am often left wondering whether they lead normal, mortal lives. For some reason, I can’t imagine Steve Schwarzman trolling the aisles of a Safeway or weeding his front lawn. I imagine him jetting to Monaco to lounge poolside. I also figure he cuts out early, but a call to Blackstone’s New York office reveals that Schwarzman is indeed at work at 4:15 p.m. “He just passed my desk and just checked the Bloomberg,” one person said. It was not immediately clear if Schwarzman would be throwing himself another party this weekend. Calls to several other PE Execs revealed they also had yet to start their weekends. One executive said he was staying at the office and plans to do that for most of the summer. “More Fridays working this year as people need to put money to work and deal flow is pretty good,” he said. This particular executive said that he more typically spends his summer weekends at his horse farm in New Jersey.
