The Blackstone Group’s $26 billion bid for Hilton Hotels has certainly ignited speculation about whether another big hotel chain—perhaps Hilton rival Marriot or Starwood—might also get taken out by private equity or whether some group might try to roll-up smaller companies to take advantage of economies of scale and branding.
Supposedly, everyone’s all excited about the hotel business now! Private equity’s here! Chuck Prince is still willing to lend money to keep the music playing! Let’s get this party started! Hot!
All too often the smaller, human-scale stories of the deals get left in the dust while everyone keeps talking about earnings multiples and leverage-to-ebitda ratios. And the story we want to tell is a story of the friendship of two very special young women. A friendship that was torn apart but now, it seems, has been repaired by the healing forces of private equity.
We’re talking, of course, about Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton. According to the website Gossip Girls, the “longtime rivalry” between the two favorites of the gossip pages “is over.” It seems that the stint in jail has Hilton rethinking her feuds. But, perhaps more importantly, Hilton has apparently been in good spirits since news of the Blackstone bid broke. A friend of Hilton’s tells the girls that “she’s got to be in a good mood after the Blackstone Group bought the Hilton Hotels, boosting her inheritance.”
Apparently the renewed friendship became public when Hilton attended a birthday party for Lohan on July 3. Somewhere out in St. Tropez, Blackstone chief Steve Schwarzman can breathe the sea air and relax with the ease of a man who knows he has restored a friendship that had long been torn asunder.
Paris Hilton’s Frienaissance With Lindsay Lohan [The Gossip Girls]
Posted by Damn I'm a loser, Jul 11, 2007 10:01AM
It's unfortunate that I know this, but Paris will be getting very little from the buyout.