Private Equity Finds the Easy Money Gone

(Businessweek) — Hamilton “Tony” E. James, president of Blackstone Group (BX), the world’s biggest private equity firm, was in an office park in a Portland (Ore.) suburb last month trying to raise money for a new $13.5 billion buyout fund. Instead of jumping at the opportunity to invest with a premier money manager, members of the Oregon Investment Council, a $52 billion state employees’ pension fund, grilled James for almost an hour about the performance of Blackstone’s Fund V, launched in 2007.

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