Blackstone Buys Hilton…'Ass Sphincter Says What?'

Posted by Howard
on July 5th, 2007

Yes I am reminded of the line from “Wayne’s World” on days like today. The world is indeed upside down.

I thought Private Equity guys had tons of ANALists in back rooms crunching numbers. The goal being to find cheap stuff, that no one understood, steal the conmpany at a time of turmoil, fix the company, and ride out big gains before an exit. Like buying Hilton after 9/11 in the low teens. Maybe in 2003 in the low 20′s.

Not today I guess. Now, they surf the all-time high list, figure out how to structure wicked fees and than flip to a foreigner in a momentum fund sort of way.

I am a simple trend follower and Hilton (HLT) was already flashing a BUY as it was hitting all-time highs recently. I have no staff. I have a widget for this. At Wallstrip , we covered Morgan Hotels as a play on the Hotel Space. Increased travel and a cheap dollar have definitely helped this trend. Blackstone is betting on surging real real estate prices continuing, a continuing cheap dollar and no travel hiccups. A risky bet I think after such a great run. Time will tell.

I would hope that if I had enough money to give to Private equity Firms, that this was not the best deal they could find today. I am not saying that Hilton is not worth $100/share per se, it’s just that I would expect Private equity forms, especially one that is supposed to be ‘the best’, to focus on a different list than me.

Morgan Hotels is up 5 percent on the Hilton News, so I am happy they are not :) .

Congrats to those long Hotels and especially Hilton. Look for the merger trend to continue (something I have been blogging about for 18 months ).

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