The Blackstone Group's IPO (initial public offering) raised $4.13 billion for the corporation on Friday by pricing at the top of its expected valuation range ($31 per share). Blackstone Group became the sixth-richest IPO in US stock market history today.
CEO Stephen Schwarzman now controls a firm whose market value stands at about $40 billion. His personal wealth also rose (with a 24 percent stake in Blackstone) worth around $8 billion.
"This is a new breed of publicly traded financial firm," said Matthew Rhodes-Kropf, a professor of finance at Columbia Business School. "Once the market demonstrates its appetite for this type of investment, we're going to see all the biggest and the best go public -- even after the incredibly negative press it has generated."
update::: a market guru by the name of Peter Cohan predicted this week that "I will go out on a limb here and predict that these Blackstone units will end the day at $90 a unit." Blackstone Group (BX) closed trading on the NYSE on Friday at $35.06.
