"Blackstone CEO: “We’ve Been Very Active Buyers In Real Estate In Europe”"

From ValueWalk:

The Blackstone Group L.P. (NYSE:BX) CEO Steve Schwarzman spoke with Fox Business Network’s (FBN) Maria Bartiromo regarding the European Central Bank (ECB) bond buying program, opportunities in Europe, the impact of the energy market and the 2015 outlook for Blackstone. Regarding the ECB bond buying program, Schwarzman said, “I think it’s a good thing,” and, “it’s probably a little bigger than most people anticipated.” Schwarzman went on to discuss the declines in the energy market, saying, “well I think this is one of the most consequential moves since I have been in finance,” and “when things collapse like this, a lot of people get into trouble and that gives you the opportunity to buy debt in companies that are not doing well.” As for the 2015 outlook for Blackstone, Schwarzman commented, “we have a lot of momentum at the firm in all of our areas.”

Blackstone CEO on the ECB bond buying program:
“I think it’s a good thing. I think it’s probably a little bigger than most people anticipated. He tends to be bold. It’s tough to get 17 countries together voting for anything and he managed to do it. This takes European interest rates, which are low, puts them even lower, should inject a little bit of growth into Europe and also some confidence in addition. It’s something we did in the US, some version of this three times, and so seeing it appear in Europe which has been years behind a US recovery, is important. But it still does not address substantive reforms that need to be done in Europe as well.”

Blackstone CEO on opportunities in Europe for investing:
“We’ve been very active buyers in real estate in Europe. In fact, we’ve been the largest buyer of real estate in Europe and we did it on the basis of a no growth Europe scenario overall. This can make things better for us in that sense and there’s been real confidence lacking in Europe, and frankly, not much money coming from the banking system which has been shrinking and so this is an attempt to reverse that to move asset values higher which would create better markets.”...MORE