Sunday, September 30, 2007


The Blackstone Group is one of the largest and richest private equity firms in the world. Blackstone is primarily involved in leveraged buyouts where the firm buys up public companies and later sells them for profit. They became a key player in Boston when it purchased Equity Office Properties, which made them the single largest owner of commercial real estate in Boston, as well as the nation as a whole. Blackstone owns signature buildings in Boston such as South Station, Center Plaza and One Post Office Square.


Here are the facts:
• CEO Stephen Schwarzman owns 5 homes—including a $31 million apartment in New York City and a mansion in Palm Beach worth over $21 million
• Blackstone controls assets worth $100 billion—this is more than 40 times the size of the City of Boston’s budget
• Blackstone owns 11.7 million square feet of commercial property in greater Boston and with rents as high as $80 per square foot---that’s nearly $750 billion a year they make in downtown Boston on just rent
• Blackstone managers pay only a 15% tax on their buyouts, while individual income is taxed at rates up to 35%