As I posted last month, Blackstone Group's CEO Stephen Schwarzman gave an interview to the Wall Street Journal with a compelling theme -- Schwarzman is the Napoleon of private equity. Napoleon-watch tracks his moves on the business battleground.
It looks like The Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX) has killed its competition again.
Bloomberg News reports that Blackstone has just raised the world's biggest buyout fund -- $21.7 billion. The fund is more than triple the $6.45 billion pool Blackstone raised in 2002, and tops the $20 billion amassed by The Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) in April.
If the credit crunch discussion I've been reading is all wrong, then Blackstone is poised to make more money than ever with this new fund. On the other hand, if lenders won't chip in, then Blackstone can sit on the money and earn a hefty management fee while waiting for the credit crunch to subside.
Or it could actually put its own capital at risk -- but then it wouldn't be a leveraged buyout firm any more.
Peter Cohan is president of Peter S. Cohan & Associates He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter.
