Stephen Schwarzman背后的神秘人

Joseph Baratta是那种坐在过山车前座的私人股票，特别是在他买一个时。

当巴拉塔LED私募股权巨头Blackstone Group的€1002万欧元（1.36亿美元）of 2005年购买Merlin娱乐场，U.K.主题公园集团为Macabre London Dungeon，这是一个为好奇游客重建血腥历史事件的博物馆而闻名。但是，利用Blackstone的支持和35亿欧元的资本，Merlin很快吞噬了其他景点 - 为Legoland竞标和收购意大利领先的主题公园运营商，在亚洲，夫人杜莎夫人和伦敦的眼睛。Merlin CEO Nick Varney stresses that without Baratta’s deal-making skills and Blackstone’s capital, the company would have had little chance of becoming what it is now: the second-largest theme park operator in the world, behind Walt Disney Co. Varney remembers Baratta’s detailed due diligence, which included riding the roller coasters at Merlin’s parks and asking intense questions about its business — at least once at 3:00 a.m.

Baratta是他在黑暗中工作built Blackstone’s European business from scratch before returning to the U.S in 2012 to lead the firm’s global private equity business is somehow both very wrong and very right. Within the cloistered world of private equity, his reputation precedes him. Yet to the larger world — which associates Blackstone with Steve Schwarzman, co-founder, CEO, and multimillion-dollar party-thrower — the name “Baratta” is all but meaningless. “He was in London for more than ten years and hasn’t been a fixture in New York,” explains Hamilton (Tony) James, Blackstone’s president and chief operating officer. James, along with Jonathan Gray and Bennett Goodman, have been mentioned as possible successors to Schwarzman, a topic that has grown more urgent as the founder celebrates his 70th birthday. A man less talked about as a potential CEO-in-waiting is Baratta.

到现在。

公众意识将黑石等同于私募股权，但公众意识是错误的。该公司于1985年由前雷曼兄弟领导人施瓦茨曼和彼得彼得森成立，现在总资产3670亿美元，但其中只有1000亿美元的私募股权，包括讽刺和战术机会。灰色经营黑石的1020亿美元房地产业务;J. Tomilson Hill Heads Blackstone替代资产管理（BAAM），710亿美元的对冲基金解决方案业务;Goodman和Tripp Smith监督了930亿美元的信用策略。该公司拥有1010亿美元所谓的干粉，或现金投资。Blackstone也冒险进入了实验领域：50％的资产是在2007年首次公开募股时不存在的策略，该公司估值了380亿美元。自2011年以来，Blackstone在资产中提交了2000亿美元，而不是其次的四个最大的同龄人。

该公司最近的加速掩盖了它的缓慢的开始。Peterson和Schwarzman希望从一开始就进入私募股权，但没有经验杠杆收购 - 与竞争对手Kohlberg Kravis Roberts相比，该领域的一个先锋从1976年成立起来 - 他们作为合并咨询公司推出了Blackstone。两年后的黑石提出了它的第一项私募股权基金，并开始投资于由储蓄和贷款危机的死亡，在1986年开始展开。到20世纪90年代，Blackstone正在成为一个开创性的制造商，并扩展到房地产和扩展到房地产和扩展对冲基金基金将成为鲍阿姆。

未来十年将重复黑石和私募股权行业。在2000年技术泡沫爆发后，机构投资者寻求替代投资，他们认为他们认为与公共股票和债券不亚博赞助欧冠同。私募股权经理开始筹集较大的资金。2002年，Schwarzman的公司为Blackstone Capical Partners IV提高了68亿美元，该基金是当时最大的私募股权基金。

By the middle of the decade, private equity was minting millionaires and billionaires at a record pace. With the Federal Reserve’s loose monetary policy, the cost to borrow money to fix companies was low, and pension funds and others were funneling record amounts to private equity managers. Blackstone and six others teamed up to acquire technology provider SunGard for $11.3 billion in 2005 — the biggest transaction since the notorious RJR Nabisco deal in the late 1980s. A year later Blackstone led a consortium of private equity firms to buy Freescale Semiconductor in an even bigger deal.

2007年，Blackstone是第一家公开的主要私募股权公司之一。随着市场的历史高位，施瓦茨曼希望挖掘公众以获得永久性资本，即使机构投资者警告股东将从损害基金回报的黑石需求增长。亚博赞助欧冠在IPO之后不久，Blackstone购买了GSO Capital Partners，是一家信用投资公司。施瓦茨曼希望进入在经济衰退中的投资。

然后全球金融危机袭来。在繁荣岁月内完成的交易开始撤消。2008年私募股权后的并购下降了60％，而2009年进一步为75％。Blackstone的股票价格起跑。与此同时，机构投资者努亚博赞助欧冠力善于对私募股权的承诺，他们曾多年来一年。

百仕通一个合理地度过了危机d, remarkably, emerged stronger. Since 2008 the firm has become a juggernaut in deal making, and not just because of its talent. To prevent a repeat of the crisis, global financial regulators enacted rules and prohibitions, including the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and the Volcker rule, that curbed banks’ risk taking. Blackstone, free of these regulations, stepped in. Since the financial crisis the firm’s assets under management have grown fourfold; its staff has increased from about 1,300 to more than 2,200; and it has entered new businesses, such as credit, secondary investments, and special situations. Schwarzman is now chairman of President Trump’s strategic policy forum.

在幕后坐了46岁的乔巴拉塔。这是他舒适的地方。在接受采访时，他谈到加利福尼亚州萨克拉门托的成长，他的父亲在没有大学教育的情况下从克利夫兰移植的身体建设者移植，1951年在Jane Fonda或Equinox之前的几十年中开了一个健康俱乐部。巴拉塔的父亲扩大了这项业务，以健身倡导者的名义品牌展示健身房杰克拉兰。在向他未来的私募股权职业点头上，巴塔塔说，他的父亲可能会很早就适合健身趋势，但他只拥有他可以管理自己的俱乐部数量。

虽然他的高中同学很少有大学的大学，但巴特拉离开萨克拉门托参加乔治城大学。他与政治的想法一起玩，但在1993年毕业后，他在摩根斯坦利的并购团体中作为分析师工作。一年后，他决定在私募股权上工作。“私募股权仍然是一个山寨行业，因此这是1993年成为一个23岁的人的一个非常好的洞察力，”他现在笑了。他说，即使他被召回了KKR的第二次面试 - 他说 - 他说 - 他拿到了一份名为McCown de Leeuw＆Co.的中间场私募股权公司的工作了几年后他加入Tinicum，工业交易制造商Dalald Ruttenberg的家庭办公室。

1998年，寻求与外部资本的公司加入一家公司，巴塔塔作为第一年的员工跳到Blackstone。当时，该公司在私募股权集团中有大约250名员工，大约25名。黑石是投资第三私募股权基金及其第二房地产基金的中间。它刚刚开始提高夹层基金。“我们有所有的作品，但它仍然很小，”巴塔塔回忆说。

In 2001, Schwarzman asked Baratta and David Blitzer (now global head of Blackstone’s tactical opportunities group) to go to London to start a European private equity business. Blackstone’s real estate group had an office there, but the firm had executed only a couple of European private equity investments from New York. In a business still led by many of the men who pioneered private equity in the late 1970s and ’80s, executives earned a lot of street cred if they got their hands dirty early. It was too late to be a pioneer in the U.S., but Baratta could do it in Europe. The two moved overseas with Blitzer at the helm and Baratta as his number two.

“European private equity was two decades behind the U.S. at that point,” Baratta says. “Blackstone didn’t have a name there. People looked down their noses at us; we were just the latest American firm to show up in Europe.” They hired a young team, focused primarily on the U.K., and developed an investment strategy that mirrored what they had done in the U.S. They identified fragmented industries ripe for consolidation, including nursing homes, hospitals, and restaurants. Baratta used the firm’s real estate expertise to differentiate Blackstone from its rivals: Nursing homes and pubs, for instance, often owned the valuable ground beneath their businesses.

巴拉塔很快就参与了大量交易。Vivendi普遍销售了一个前首席执行官在出价中购买了新媒体关注的公司;2002年，Blackstone与Thomas H. Lee Partners和Bain Capital合作，购买其中一项，美国教科书业务Houghton Mifflin。Vik Sawhney当时是一名投资银行家。“我从来没有遇到过如此激情，愿意表达他们对如此年轻的交易的担忧，”他现在说巴拉塔。“作为一名银行家，你只想要交易。但我记得思考，“这家伙是谁？”“Sawhney现在是私募股权集团的首席运营官。

The deals kept coming. Baratta invested in Center Parcs, a prominent holiday village in the U.K.; Southern Cross, the U.K.’s largest group of nursing homes; and SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment. But like Schwarzman, Baratta had a gift for timing: From 2006 to 2008, as the industry was expanding and asset prices were hitting highs, Baratta slowed down. And his U.K.-focused strategy helped him avoid problems that competitors faced in Spain and other countries after the crisis.

In 2010, Baratta was made head of Europe. “A mistake a lot of firms make is to take the most prolific deal partner and say, ‘Now we’re going to make you a manager.’ That’s a different skill set,” says Blackstone president James. “Joe excelled. His strengths are pure leadership and great instincts. He’s leaning forward, chest out, quick and looking for action. We’re on our fourth-generation leader in private equity. He’s really smart but doesn’t just sit there and analyze things. He’s on the field, engaged in deals even now, just to keep his hand in.”

In 2012, Baratta was named global head of private equity and returned to the U.S. Sources close to the firm say he was the right pick for the right time, in part because he didn’t want the limelight and Blackstone had plenty of work to do. With crisis-era deals still making headlines, the private equity industry was in a funk. Fundraising was difficult, and the industry still had billions in cash that hadn’t been invested. Blackstone itself took three years to finish fundraising for Blackstone Capital Partners VI, which was started in 2008. “No one wanted to invest with the publicly traded large-cap firms,” Baratta says. “They thought we had peaked.”

虽然它被危机缩写，但是黑石已经过度爆炸而过着大量爆炸，甚至是购买企业。除了绩效统计数据外，巴塔塔需要向投资者展示该公司维持纪律，并没有太早销售，并产生一致的回报。“我们让我们的投资者专注于基金中的回报的波动：您是否有两次投资，在那里您赚了八倍的资金和25次，你什么都没有或跌到赚钱？”他说。巴拉塔断言，黑石的一贯回报可以归功于公司的结构：与一个投资委员会的单一全球基金，与基于区域或部门的竞争对手的资金形成鲜明对比。

Still, he admits, change was needed. One priority upon his ascension was getting the U.S. private equity group refocused on finding deals themselves instead of waiting for opportunities from bankers — the riding-the-roller-coaster method, in short. “He turned the culture back to its roots as an entrepreneurial and scrappy deal engine,” says Sawhney.

巴蒂也想将公司定位在私募股权的下一阶段，他认为将涉及转型企业。他说，在业内初期，可以使用智能人员和创新融资来产生良好的回报。私募股权行业建立在利率下降和经济增长良好的后面。“Now you’ve got the reverse trend: You have increasing cost of capital over time as rates go from really low levels to higher levels, and economic growth is a bit more muted than it was in the mid-’90s and mid-2000s.”

Under Baratta, Blackstone invested significantly in operational infrastructure, hiring experts in areas such as procurement, health insurance, and pricing. In 2014 James recruited David Calhoun to head private equity portfolio operations. Calhoun, former CEO and president of GE Infrastructure, had been CEO of Nielsen since 2006, shortly after it was acquired by five private equity firms, including Blackstone.

Calhoun说，他专门在私募股权公司拥有的公司拥有并看到各自接触运营角色后选择黑石。“他们都明白，提高公司的运营正成为方程式最重要的部分。这不是一个秘密，“他说。“但是你如何排队那个首席执行官背后的资源，所以他们会比他们自己的那样更好吗？”Calhoun说一家公司有一系列高级顾问 - 也许是退休的首席执行官 - 谁将与首席执行官一起飞行并共度一天，然后飞出。另一个使用了一般咨询模型。他发现两个模型有限。相比之下，Blackstone聘用了专家 - 例如 - 例如 - 谁将在投资组合公司内建立这些功能。在巴拉塔上铺的卡尔霍尔是他准备将运营商添加到公司委员会的内容。从历史上看，交易起源团队将填充董事会，直到IPO前一天，当时工业管理人员会增加。 In a cultural shift, Calhoun wanted operators — say, on the board of an aerospace company — from day one. “Joe had no fear of the social dynamics that could occur between the investor board reps and the operators,” Calhoun says.

Despite Baratta’s崛起和他在私募股权单位所在的变化，黑石面临挑战。Its stock price, which has doubled in five years, is still 20 to 25 percent below the all-time high it hit in May 2015. Investors, it is suggested, penalize the stock because of the volatility from Blackstone’s irregular sales of portfolio companies and real estate. The stock trades at a multiple between 9 and 11 times the price-earnings ratio; traditional managers trade at about 14 to 15 times earnings. Depending on Schwarzman’s influence, the firm may also face a changed market environment given President Trump’s promise to roll back Dodd–Frank, which aided Blackstone’s growth by hobbling its bank competitors.

就像顶部有标志性人物的所有公司一样，黑石需要处理连续。随着第一代私募股权高管庆祝退休距离生日，该行业正在努力与领导力 - 不一定是因为没有足够的合格的继任者，但由于顶部的家伙不想退休。为什么他们应该？施瓦茨曼作为首席执行官的角色让他进入总统的景区线，他的驱动器毫无疑问;他坚持认为，他的白宫角色不会带走他的全职工作，只是他的睡眠。在华尔街外观之外的很少有人听说过Joe Baratta，因为他不需要。

Blackstone has dealt with succession better than many of its peers. Schwarzman was lauded for bringing in Tony James to handle day-to-day management in 2002. (James is a well-respected, if not beloved, manager who was chairman of global investment banking and private equity at Credit Suisse First Boston.) Among other possible successors are Jonathan Gray, the 47-year-old who has been with Blackstone since graduating from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School in 1992; Bennett Goodman, who co-founded GSO Capital, which has been a home run for Blackstone; and David Blitzer, who went to Europe with Baratta and whose tactical opportunities business runs $17 billion.

“这是正确的。任何四个可能接管，“雅各布的雅各，古德曼，博利策和巴塔塔说。灰色已经增长了房地产投资组合，以1020亿美元，是世界上最大的1020亿美元，通过制作一些大赌注，包括2007年全球希尔顿的收购。灰色是继任的最爱;据报道，他还兴趣为公职竞选，并在特朗普政府中审议了财政部长。59岁的古德曼于2015年获得约2亿美元的限制股，以便在公司中给予他一个更大的股份，并鼓励他留在退休年龄。

目前，巴塔塔 - 在成功的赛马中的黑马施瓦茨曼 - 有他的手满。黑石拥有50亿美元的核心私募股权基金，它筹集了四到五家公司，它将长期搁置，并为客户提供共同投资机会。这是投资180亿美元的黑石资本合作伙伴VII一年。它还拥有45亿美元的能源基金，与主要基金一起投入。

He’s also busy running a $100 billion private equity business at a time that he says is more treacherous than he’s ever seen: Equities are at lofty valuations, interest rates are likely headed higher, and the uncertainty of the Trump administration’s policies could help or hurt the economy. “It’s a very difficult time to be an investor given how high the public markets are and how hot credit markets are,” Baratta says. “But given our single global fund structure and the fact that we’re making ten to 12 investments globally, we can be highly selective.”

在Blackstone内，很少有疑问巴拉塔的处理市场过山车的能力。“他永远看着问题并以新的方式解决他们的话，如果需要，”Sawhney说。“有时在组织中，你对待事物，就像他们带着平板电脑的摩西一样。“如此如此，这样，为什么改变它？”对于乔而足够好，永远不会好。“

但在一个经常依靠自己的摩西的组织中 - 施瓦茨曼 - 关于乔巴拉塔的剩余问题是他是否足够好，或雄心勃勃，令人思想，有一天的领导。