Submitted by: Submitted by irenekhl
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Category: Business and Industry
Date Submitted: 05/13/2013 09:13 PM
SIMULATION FOREGROUND READING1
The Blackstone Bid for Celanese AG
In late summer 2003, The Blackstone Group LP was contemplating whether to launch a tender offer for Celanese AG’s common shares as a means of effecting a friendly takeover. Blackstone needed to formulate specific terms of an offer. The transaction, if successful, would constitute the largest European public‐to‐private transaction in history. The Blackstone Group LP in 2003 The Blackstone Group LP (Blackstone) was a private equity firm founded in 1985 by industry veterans Peter Peterson, its chairman, and Stephen Schwarzman, its CEO. The firm managed private equity funds, hedge funds, and other investment funds; invested in real estate and corporate debt instruments; and provided mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and restructuring advice to corporate clients. Its alternative asset‐management businesses included the management of corporate private equity funds, real estate funds, hedge funds, funds of hedge funds, mezzanine funds, senior debt vehicles, and closed‐end mutual funds. Like other major private equity firms, Blackstone in 2003 was privately held and released limited information about its operations. Since its founding, Blackstone had raised more than $25 billion for alternative asset investing, including more than $14 billion for private equity investments. At $6.5 billion, the firm’s Blackstone Capital Partners IV was the largest institutional private equity fund ever raised.
1 Sources used in the development of this reading include: Blackstone Press Releases and Celanese Corporate History from
company websites; Hoover’s Company Profile of Blackstone; Celanese AG 6-K SEC Filing (October 30, 2003); Celanese AG 13E3 SEC Filing (September 2, 2004); Celanese AG 20-F SEC Filings (December 31, 2003 and September 30, 2004); Standard & Poor’s Industry Surveys, “Chemicals:...