NEW YORK, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Blackstone Group's stock could drop even more than it has to date if the company's assets were marked to market, Barron's reported on Sunday.
The financial weekly said the company seems to be maintaining 'overly generous values' on its private equity and real-estate investments.
In the third quarter Blackstone took average markdowns of 8 percent on its private equity funds and 10 percent on its realty funds. But Barron's said those new values were probably not realistic and possibly still overvalued the assets.
It pointed to the weakening economy, a sharp drop in public-equity markets and the depressed prices of bonds issued by several companies in which Blackstone's funds holds stakes as reasons to be bearish on Blackstone.
(Reporting by Yinka Adegoke, editing by Martin Golan) ((e-mail:yinka.adegoke@thomsonreuters.com Reuters Messaging: Yinka.adegoke.reuters.com@reuters.net; +1 646 223 6081)) Keywords: BLACKSTONE/ (Click on http://blogs.reuters.com/category/themes/mediafile/ to see Reuters MediaFile blog) COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Reuters 2008. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Reuters News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters.
The financial weekly said the company seems to be maintaining 'overly generous values' on its private equity and real-estate investments.
In the third quarter Blackstone took average markdowns of 8 percent on its private equity funds and 10 percent on its realty funds. But Barron's said those new values were probably not realistic and possibly still overvalued the assets.
It pointed to the weakening economy, a sharp drop in public-equity markets and the depressed prices of bonds issued by several companies in which Blackstone's funds holds stakes as reasons to be bearish on Blackstone.
(Reporting by Yinka Adegoke, editing by Martin Golan) ((e-mail:yinka.adegoke@thomsonreuters.com Reuters Messaging: Yinka.adegoke.reuters.com@reuters.net; +1 646 223 6081)) Keywords: BLACKSTONE/ (Click on http://blogs.reuters.com/category/themes/mediafile/ to see Reuters MediaFile blog) COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Reuters 2008. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Reuters News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters.