Blackstone opens Silicon Valley office

The Blackstone Group has tapped Ivan Brockman to open a corporate advisory office in Menlo Park, California.

The Menlo Park office will provide corporate advisory and M&A services to both large and small companies in the technology sector.

Prior to joining Blackstone, Brockman was co-head of west coast technology investment banking for Citigroup where he led the firm’s investment banking efforts in the enterprise systems and software industries.

Brockman earlier held positions in Goldman Sachs’ technology, media and telecom investment banking group and at technology-focused Palo Alto law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati.

Technology advisory on the east coast is led by Chris Pasko out of Blackstone’s Boston office. Pasko joined Blackstone last year, prior to which he was head of Morgan Stanley’s east coast technology investment banking group.

Blackstone is a publicly listed investment and advisory firm. On the investment side, Blackstone has recently put in place teams to launch cleantech and infrastructure funds.

The newly formed cleantech business group is headed by senior managing director James Kiggen who joined Blackstone from asset manager AllianceBernstein.

Trent Vichie, a division director for Macquarie Securities, has been tapped to lead The Blackstone Group’s new infrastructure fund management business.