Okay. That headline is a little hyperbolic. There will always be public markets because there will always a demand for investment opportunities from the capital markets. But it's not impossible to imagine a shift in the public markets—one where we'd see fewer and fewer operating companies trading on stock exchanges, and more and more investment banks, private equity firms, hedge funds and pseudo-investment companies like Sears and Berkshire-Hathaway dominating. The question is not so much whether we want this intermediation between the capital markets and operating corporations to happen but why it's happening?
Also, while we've got nothing but admiration for Blackstone's Jonathan Gray, we do wish he wasn't lifting his press quotes directly from our compodium of empty investment banking cliches, the Deal Lingo Lexicon.
“We believe that the skills and strengths of Equity Office will greatly enhance our existing office platform,” Jonathan D. Gray, senior managing director of Blackstone, said in a statement.
Blackstone Acquiring Trust in Richest Buyout [New York Times]
Posted by , Nov 20, 2006 5:16PM
The answer is simple.
Sarbanes Oxley. duh.
That is also the answer to why the LSE will never agree to be bought by NASDAQ.
Its all the paranoid and scared republicans enacting legislation up the wazoo big-government style.