Private-equity firms don't have a good track record for improving the properties they buy. They're better known for buying firms, improving efficiencies (sometimes to the company's detriment), milking them for cash, and then flipping them when they can profit. Recently I wrote the sad but familiar tale of Simmons, an iconic mattress company forced into bankruptcy from the debt load left by frequent private-equity flipping.

Will Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX) do the same to Busch Entertainment? On Wednesday, Anheuser-Busch InBev (NYSE: BUD) finalized a deal to sell the group to Blackstone for $2.7 billion, and the early signs suggest that this deal might go better than others.

Shamu, the first female orca ever captured, has been dead for 38 years. Isn't it time the world's most famous performing killer whale got her own wax figure?

With private-equity firm Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX), which owns Madame Tussauds wax museums, reportedly in talks to buy SeaWorld and Busch Gardens parks from brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev (NYSE: BUD) for up to $3 billion, a Shamu immortalized in wax may no longer be out of the question.

If this private-equity deal is completed, it would be the biggest in 2009 and one of the largest since the economic crisis began in 2008, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Will the U.S. retreat from new rules that would make it harder for private-equity firms and hedge funds to buy failed banks? From Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts and Blackstone to Wilbur Ross and John Paulson, private investors have been pushing back against the changes, saying they're too onerous. If they become the law of the land, it'll become harder to find buyers for banks gone bust, they say.

Whether their complaints were effective will become clear next week, when the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. plans to vote on the rules, it said today.

According to the Wall Street Journal, China's government recently has pushed development of its local private-equity industry so that Chinese investors can get in on the country's private-equity deals. To that end, Chinese officials have tried to lure foreign money managers to raise funds from local investors.

Hong Kong-based First Eastern Investment Group, which plans to raise six billion yuan through a new wholly owned Shanghai subsidiary, and Asian brokerage CLSA Ltd., which plans to raise a 10 billion yuan fund through a joint-venture with state holding company Shanghai Guosheng Co., are just the latest to establish local-currency private-equity funds in Shanghai.

Over the past couple years, it's been horrible for the private equity sector, right? Well, not so for the head of the Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX), Steve Schwarzman.

According to the Corporate Library -- which put together a top ten list for the highest paid executives for 2008 -- he was first on the list. The second was Oracle's (NASDAQ: ORCL) Larry Ellison, with $543 million.

When you add up all the sources of income (cash/bonus, stock options, and restricted shares), the compensation for Schwarzman comes to $702.4 million. Just imagine if the market was stronger.

As seen on the Blackstone Group's (NYSE: BX) latest earnings conference call, the firm is trying to find ways to diversify its platform beyond buyouts (this is no fluke as other firms, like KKR, are doing the same thing). One of the areas of interest is actually hedge funds.

To this end, Blackstone made a big hire this week, bringing Byron Wien on board as the vice chairman of Blackstone Advisory Services. Actually, he is leaving Pequot Capital Management Inc., which is a hedge fund that is in the process of closing down (assets were as high as $15 billion). The firm is now faces an SEC investigation regarding trading in Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) stock. This is according to a report in the Wall Street Journal [a paid publication].

It looks like Wilbur Ross and John Paulson have some company.

Ross, who runs the private equity shop W.L. Ross & Co., and Paulson, the chief executive of hedge fund manager Paulson & Co., oppose new rules under discussion in Washington that would make it harder for firms like theirs to buy failed banks.

Now, as the window for public comment on the proposed changes closes, KKR and the Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX), two of the biggest private equity firms, say they too would probably be discouraged by the new rules from buying failed banks after they've been seized by the government.

Despite the credit crunch and recession, private equity powerhouse, the Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX), was still able to post a profit of $180.8 million in Q2. How was this possible? It certainly helped that the equities markets surged. The upshot was that the Blackstone company portfolio had an average mark-up of 3%.

Yet, the fact remains that the buyout business continues to lag. While valuations are attractive, the problem is that banks continue to be stingy with funding. Unfortunately, without leverage, it's pretty tough to generate strong returns.

Shares of private equity firm Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX) surged 21% on Monday. The question is why?

Some have attributed the surge to investors buying on speculation of an upside surprise from Thursday's earnings report. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect the New York-based company to report fiscal third quarter earnings of $0.09 per share, compared to a loss of $0.07 per share in the second quarter, but also a profit of $0.15 per share in the year-ago quarter. Revenue for the third quarter is expected to be 9.1% lower than a year ago to $341.9 million.

While the Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX) is primarily known as a private equity firm, this actually understates things. In fact, it is a diverse global platform that spans hedge funds, corporate advisory, and real estate investments.

Actually, the real estate segment is getting bigger. This week Blackstone announced that it raised a $4.3 billion real estate fund with the main focus on opportunities in Europe. It's called the Blackstone Real Estate Partners Europe III fund (for whatever reason, these funds can be a mouthful).

Back in 2007 -- at the height of the private equity bubble -- the Chinese sovereign wealth fund, China Investment Corp. (CIC), agreed to invest $3 billion in Blackstone (NYSE: BX). Of course, it was a disaster. In all, the investment lost roughly two-thirds of its value.

Despite all this, it looks like CIC hasn't given up on Blackstone. In fact, according to the Wall Street Journal (subscription required), CIC is prepared to invest $500 million into a Blackstone hedge fund vehicle.

Blackstone Group co-founder Peter Peterson has elected to donate $1 billion -- which he calls the "vast majority" of his "net proceeds" from the company -- to his very own Peter G. Peterson Foundation. The foundation's mission statement on its website reads:

Our mission is to increase public awareness of the nature and urgency of key economic challenges threatening America's future and accelerate action on them. To meet these challenges successfully, we work to bring Americans together to find sensible, sustainable solutions that transcend age, party lines and ideological divides in order to achieve real results.

Not long ago, the private equity firm, Fortress Investment Group LLC (NYSE: FIG), appeared to be in deep trouble. But things are looking better now, as the stock price has gone from $1 to $4.65 this year.

In fact, Fortress is now pulling the trigger on some deals. Just this week, the firm teamed up with Crestview Partners LP and Lightyear Capital LLC to invest $450 million in First Southern Bancorp (Lightyear is operated by Donald Marron, who was the former chief of PaineWebber Group).

Regulators have seized BankUnited (NASDAQ: BKUNA), Florida's largest bank, and sold its deposits to a consortium of private equity funds, marking it the largest bank to fail so far this year.

BankUnited's failure will cost the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. some $4.9 billion, the agency said in a statement. The bank boasted $12.8 billion in assets and $8.6 billion in deposits, according to the FDIC.

In what could be the most watched private equity deal of the year, a consortium of buyout firms led by billionaire investor Wilbur L. Ross has set its sights on BankUnited Financial Corp. (NASDAQ: BKUNA), says the Wall Street Journal (subscription required). The consortium includes Carlyle Group and Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX).

Earlier this year, federal regulators declared that the Florida-based lender was "critically undercapitalized" and demanded that it find a buyer or raise new capital. While regulators have traditionally favored other lenders in sales of banks, if Ross's group is successful, it would not only be one of the largest acquisitions in the financial-services sector made by private equity, but could also signal a shift in the government's attitude toward private-equity buyers of banks.