President Bush told lawmakers that they had no business trying to manage the war hours before they approved a measure to withdraw most combat troops from Iraq by April 1, 2008.
If you missed your chance to buy shares of private-equity firms Blackstone and Fortress when they went public earlier this year, don't despair–more initial public offerings seem right around the corner. While wealthy individuals with more leverage at brokerage firms usually have a better shot at getting the shares at lower, premarket prices, small-time investors sometimes get lucky. "The notion that you must be a multimillionaire is a misnomer," says Scott Sweet, managing director at the advisory firm IPO Boutique. Here's the skinny on five private-equity firms likely to go public next:
Public offerings by big private-equity firms like KKR and the Blackstone Group have generated lots of headlines lately. But this rareified form of finance remains opaque to many investors. The following FAQs help explain what private equity is, why it matters, and how ordinary investors can participate.
Private-equity barons are notoriously, well, private. But with their firms doing high-visibility, multibillion-dollar deals–and now, a few of them starting to go public–the curtain has been rising on these once secretive investing houses. In April, four titans of the private-equity universe–David Rubenstein of the Carlyle Group, Leon Black of Apollo Management, Tommy Lee of Thomas H. Lee Partners, and David Bonderman of the Texas Pacific Group–spoke together at a conference in Beverly Hills, Calif., sponsored by the Milken Institute. Deputy Business Editor Rick Newman was in the audience. He transcribed some of their remarks:
AP - The Iraqi government is achieving only spotty military and political progress, the Bush administration conceded Thursday in an assessment that war critics quickly seized on as confirmation of their dire warnings.
AP - Al-Qaida is stepping up its efforts to sneak terror operatives into the United States and has acquired most of the capabilities it needs to strike here, according to a new U.S. intelligence assessment, The Associated Press has learned.
AP - President Bush always said he would wait to talk about the CIA leak case until after the investigation into his administration's role. On Thursday, he skipped over that step and pronounced the matter old news hardly worth discussing.
After watching all of the talk about Iraq in president Bush's news conference Thursday, I couldn't get a certain song by the popular band Green Day out of my head -- "Wake Me Up When September Ends."
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