As you, but not Yahoo!, know, George Carlin died yesterday. In his role as Kennedy Center chair, Steve Schwarzman said of Carlin, who was named the winner of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, “…[he] not only made us laugh, but he made us think.” While you might be quick to say, “Obviously not too hard, Crabs, because Carlin spent most of his career railing against, among other things, the myriad bull shit ways people like you’ve gotten rich,” it seems the late comedian was able to penetrate Crabby, conspicuous in his lack of golf playing, on at least one issue:
Blackstone
Natasha Archdale is a genius. The London-based artist, who charges up to $30,000 per piece, allows her clients, the majority of whom work in the financial industry, to purport masturbatory feelings for loved ones while craftily hiding their true agenda, that being masturbatory feelings for themselves.
- Posted in:
Steve Schwarzman
Schwarzman’s Jokes Not Offensive Enough To Ruin Business Opps
By Bess Levin
Less than a week after Steve Schwarzman’s Nagasaki joke bombed in Boca (of his failure to get the loan money to buy mortgage company PHH, Crab Hands said, “Trying to buy a mortgage bank in the midst of the subprime crisis was the equivalent of being a noodle salesman in Nagasaki when the atomic bomb went off. Not a lot of noodles left, or even a person, and that’s what happened to us on this deal.”), Blackstone has announced it would like to get in on some deal opportunities in Asia.
It plans to do so with the launch of Blackstone Altius Advisors, an event-driven strategy based in Hong Kong, with staff in Tokyo, Mumbai, and New York, and focused on money making schemes on the left-hand side of the Pacific. Good to see no one over there’s holding a grudge. Though, to be fair, it’s been a while since the atrocities that Schwarzman made light of in Florida went down. That real test would be to have Schwarzman make some cyclone cracks in his next public appearance, and see if they have an effect on Blackstone’s (non-existent) business efforts in Myanmar (which you know he would probably call Burma, after making “Formosa” and “Peking” jokes).
Blackstone to Launch Blackstone Altius Advisors, an Asia-Focused, Event-Driven Investment Business [BusinessWire]
It almost seems like there are three kinds of pending buyouts. The deals where the financial sponsors want out, the deals where the lenders want out, and the deals where both want out. Where Alliance Data Systems sits among these options is anyone’s guess. Believe it or not, the fact that Alliance filed suit last Friday, pushing for a $170 million breakup fee as compensation for the failed deal doesn’t really clear matters up on this count.
Back in February, Alliance dropped its first lawsuit against Blackstone, yes, this would be the second one now, then indicating that Blackstone had made nice-nice like with Alliance and promised on the souls of its grandchildren to consummate the deal. Back then, the risk arbitrage guys who were betting the deal was likely to close were thrilled. Alliance’s stock shot up 6% on the news to $55.00 or so. That sounds impressive, until you notice that Blackstone’s offer was $81.75 last May.
It had to happen eventually, I suppose.
Annoyed with the lack of transparency exhibited by Blackstone (because how could anyone know that place wasn’t a fishbowl of transparency?) an investor in the firm has decided to sue. Color us surprised. There is no way we could have guessed that this was on the horizon.
- Use the Bloomberg command
NH BLG_DEALBREAKER <GO>
to access Dealbreaker
