2024-04-15 23:54:00
16. April 2024
Stephen Schwarzman, the founder of Blackstone, has had a distinguished career. His drive to succeed began at a young age when he worked in the family business and later started his own lawn mowing business. Schwarzman emphasized the importance of surrounding yourself with smart people and building a system for generating data. He recalled successful investments such as the purchase of Hilton, but also bitter lessons from a failed steel business.
The 77-year-old founder and CEO of Blackstone grew up in a suburb of Philadelphia. At the age of ten he was already helping out in his father’s fabric shop and at the age of 14 he started his own lawn mowing business. His drive for success started early. In his book “What It Takes,” he recalls asking his father to expand the successful fabric store nationwide, but his father refused.
Schwarzman, who attended Yale University, made up for his father’s lack of ambition. Founded in 1985, Blackstone is now the world’s largest alternative asset manager with over $1 trillion in assets. Schwarzman’s fortune is estimated by Forbes at $39 billion.
He began his career in private equity and then moved to Blackstone. The company began as a traditional leveraged buyout firm but evolved into a buy-and-build strategy firm. Schwarzman emphasizes the importance of surrounding yourself with intelligent people and creating a system that generates enormous proprietary data. He recommends patience and emphasizes that investment decisions should only be made when one has enormous confidence in success.
He cites the purchase of Hilton in 2007 as a successful investment, although it seemed expensive at the time of purchase. A disappointing investment was Edgcomb Steel, in which Blackstone lost 100% of their original investment. This experience led to the transformation of the decision-making process in the company.
Schwarzman emphasizes the importance of understanding the macro environment in order to better assess the micro level. He sees opportunities in credit, real estate and private equity, particularly if interest rates fall later in the year.
He cites the geopolitical situation, regulatory concerns and political uncertainty as the biggest risks for investors. He recommends his own book “What It Takes” and “Shoe Dog” by Phil Knight regarding the founding of Nike as worth reading for investors.
Text: Sergei Klebnikov
Foto: World Economic Forum
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