Big Blackstone: Too Much Hype For Me

If you're reading this, it's likely you've already gorged yourself on plenty of other commentary out there on the Blackstone (BX) IPO. In fact, I've already weighed in on the issue through a piece I did for The Motley Fool on Friday.

The facts on the offering are all pretty much out there, so all that's really left if for everyone to throw in their hats on where they think the stock will be headed. Like I said in the piece for The Fool, I'm pretty lukewarm about the offering.

One of the most obvious things to look at is who is doing the offering. This is mega-dealmaker Blackstone -- they don't need the money, so the only reason that they'd be doing this is to opportunistically take advantage of a good pricing environment. Do you think Schwarzman is going to leave money on the table if he doesn't have to?

The other point to keep in mind is that Blackstone isn't the only firm of its type. The bulge bracket I-banks that are already public -- Goldman (GS) and Merrill Lynch (MER) to name just two -- are doing PE buyouts just like big Blackstone. Some might argue that you can pick up the stock of those firms pretty good prices right now. And with KKR hiring Morgan Stanley (MS) and Citi (C) to potentially headline its IPO, we may be seeing more shares that are directly comparable to Blackstone's coming to market soon.

For me, Blackstone is too much hype and has too many eyes on it. With thousands of stocks out there, I figure there are better deals out there than this.