Breaking Down Blackstone
Last week, a generous reader sent over materials from The Blackstone Group’s annual meeting, which took place in mid-May at The Waldorf Astoria. Goes without saying that he/she is currently my favorite reader... More than 100 pages of performance, predictions, posturing and (a bit of) prostrating. Rather than try to weave it all into a confused narrative, my plan is to just run through what I consider to be the most interesting items: - On the current economic conditions: “No one working today has seen anything like this… More depression than recession… Visibility is extraordinarily limited. It is a time for caution… The survivors, even if they sit on the sidelines a little too long, will have a period of fantastic investment opportunities as we recover.” - “When things do turn, we will be rapid committers of capital, similar to 2003 and 2004. Until then, we will be very cautious exposing LPs’ capital, with the exception of purchasing debt at significant discounts.”
