6/22/2007

Why "Blackstone"

The Blackstone IPO is the talk of the town today. So what is behind the name "Blackstone". Here is the back story behind the name:

There’s been a lot said lately about The Blackstone Group, its founding members, its top ranking executives, its past, its future, its current status. But nothing about where the firm got its name. SEC filings have allowed the public to peek inside and dissect the money machine that is Blackstone, learning juicy bits of information like how much co-founder Stephen Scharzman makes ($400 million last year alone), and how much fellow co-founder Peter Peterson will cash in when the planned IPO arrives on Friday (he’ll make $1.88 billion).

And yet, nothing on the name. Blackstone is now a huge, international brand, with $88 billion under management. The firm is synonymous with private equity power, wealth, corporate turnarounds, record leveraged buyouts, asset management, and so on.

So where did “Blackstone” itself come from?

According to those in the know, “Blackstone” is simply a merging of the two founders’ last names, with a nod to their family origins.

Schwarzman has German roots and “schwartz” of course is the German word for black.

Peterson’s family tree is Greek, and in Greek, “petra” and “petros” means rock or stone.

So, there you have it–Blackstone.

Blackstone Group is probably a better choice than other options relating to their first and or surnames. DealZone took a look at some possibilities:

S&P–Already taken

Blackrock–Ditto

Stoneblack–Not bad, actually, but ending in “black” makes it too gothy. Also kind of makes you think more pirate than private equity.

P&S–No way.

Rockblack–Mouthful

Petersteve LLC–Okay, now we’re getting silly.

10 comments:

Jack said...

Thanks for the interesting post,

Yes, "Petros" or the female version "Petra" for the name of the Biblical figure "Peter" who was called "the Rock" by Jesus.

I guess if you owned shares before the IPO you could call Blackstone "Gemstone" after today.

TorontoTrader said...

how come stockbee ?

QUIKTDR said...

When running "Son of Double Trouble" what do the numerical answers actually mean?

Thank you in advance!

Paulin said...

pradeep, how would you explain the abnormal volume on lot of stocks today? What happened? stocks like lxu,fslr,abxa,sdth,frpt,hdng and many others had huge trades EOD or AH. can you share your thoughts as to what happened?

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jon said...

Paulin,
It was the Russell 3000 rebalancing. They do it once a year. Last year it was at the end of June. Lots of opportunity!

QUIKTDR said...

With regards to abnormal volume, once a year the Russell Indexes do a rebalancing of stocks in the index. Therefore all funds that try to mimic performance of these specific indexes shed the stocks that have been eliminated and must add the new stocks to their portfolios.
Hence, more volume.

walter said...

Pradeep,

SNHY has come up a couple times this week...

you see friday's volume - it's huge but the price is not down that much relative to the overall market.

any ideas?

walter said...

$RUT redistribution, i guess, is to blame...

Pradeep Bonde said...

Quiktdr
When running "Son of Double Trouble" what do the numerical answers actually mean?
----------------------------
It is a price rate of change from 135 day average price.