Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Wed, 1 Aug 2007 19:15:00 PDT Joseph Weisenthal http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070730/112618.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070730/112618.shtml lash out against private equity executives for drawing political scrutiny and potentially ending the party. But as Andrew Ross Sorkin points out, all of this outrage pointed at the industry (and Blackstone chief Stephen Schwarzman specifically) is a bit overdone. Plenty of executives could accused of having a big ego or of throwing big, garrulous parties in their own honor, as Schwarzman has done. Ultimately, it was the company's IPO that served as the catalyst for the outrage, so Blackstone, simply by virtue of being first to go public, has borne the brunt of it all. That being said, if things start to deteriorate economically, expect even more outrage at any executive perceived as having cashed out at the top.

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]]> black-stone http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20070730/112618 Fri, 20 Jul 2007 10:45:44 PDT Joseph Weisenthal http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070720/072808.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070720/072808.shtml quite a number of ownership changes. Last year, Orbitz' parent company was bought out by private equity firm Blackstone, which promptly decided to flip it back to the public markets. When it first filed to go public, there were many who argued that the company looked like a terrible investment for both operational and structural reasons. It looks like the market agrees with that assessment, as the IPO ended up pricing below its expected range. Private equity firms aren't infallible, and sometimes they're bound to buy companies that they can't turn into very much. But as more of these unimpressive offerings come to market, there's going to be increased skepticism over whether these firms can apply their magic touch to the tech industry.

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