The private equity titan's 1989 stumble taught him valuable lessons.
Chief Investment Officer
December 20, 2019
By Robert Stowe England
As the year draws to a close, we tend to reflect upon where we’ve been. For Stephen A. Schwarzman, chairman, CEO, and co-founder of the Blackstone Group, one of those early painful lessons was the importance of establishing and following a rigorous process for assessing all the risks before making an investment.
That emerges from his new book, one of the best business titles of the year, and the talks he gave about it. What also emerges is a deal that went sour three decades ago, as he was starting his firm.
“We go from the premise that our first job, sort of like a doctor, is do no harm – and in the financial business that means don’t lose money,” Schwarzman said at a Reuters Newsmaker event for “What It Takes: Lessons in the Pursuit of Excellence.” He was interviewed at the Thomson Reuters building in New York before invited guests by Reuters editor-at-large Sir Harold Evans. Schwarzman in his book cited “don’t lose money” as the number one rule at Blackstone, acknowledging that saying that out loud sometimes prompts smirks.
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