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Four at Four: A Time to Sell

Posted by David Gaffen

The people running Blackstone Group aren’t stupid.

CEO Stephen Schwarzman and the rest of the top brass are getting big paydays as a result of their impending initial public offering.

And Blackstone’s recent $3 billion love note from China suggests it might be headed in a lucrative direction while rival firms trample each other to get the thinning scraps of what’s left to get in the U.S.

"It seems to me…that there is more and more leveraged buyout money pushing deals to higher and higher prices, which means the risk/reward ratio for private equity firms is not what it used to be," says Francis Gaskins, CEO of IPOdesktop.com, who says he believes the "easy pickings" in the U.S. are gone.

Even the fake houses aren’t selling anymore. Home builder KB Home had plans to build 3,000-square foot mock-ups of homes at Macy’s stores in big cities, but has scrapped those plans, Vanessa O’Connell wrote in today’s Wall Street Journal. KB Home ended the day down 1%, so it’s not as if this was a big deal for the stock, but it just underlines the struggles the housing industry continues to work through, even as other parts of the economy seemingly hold it together.