Why CalSTRS is attracted to the dark

Hmm, this is a stretch. I am positive that CalSTRS has an incredible amount of transparency into Blackstone's investments as an LP. They will receive detailed quarterly reviews of every single investment plus I am sure their calls are picked up immediately at BX HQ. The calls for more PE industry transparency are coming from those without any stake in the underlying funds.

I don't understand the tone of this piece. Why the WSJ's piece speculative or a bagatelle? This seems like sour grapes on the part of your journalist to me which is less than professional. Further, I think that the difference between an LP commitment of $1.7B and $250m from one fund to the next is more than "a bit" and does in fact constitute a "huge" reduction-- and I am sure managers like Blackstone would agree with that characterization. Finally, I do not believe the article ever says that that Blackstone's status as a public company is the driving factor in their investment decision-- to me the trend they identify is that public pensions are currently overallocated to private equity because of the overall decline in values in their public markets portfolios, as well as the lack of distributions coming back from PE in the absence of exits. You should seriously consider changing the tone and tenor of this piece if you want to run it in print. I am surprised to see something so pithy from the Deal.

The second commenter on this post raises a few points worth replying to. The reference to the size of Calstrs reduction was poorly put. What I meant was that it wasn’t huge compared to Blackstone’s total assets. As for the notion that the story never settles on the “public” aspect as a driving factor in the investment, that’s true, because it throws out a number of different theories about why Calstrs is pulling back (which is why I referred to it as “speculative”). In fact the entire core of the Journal story quite intelligently discusses the private-public issue, including a quote from Calstrs to the effect that money managers have an affinity for investing in private situations where the stock price doesn’t get in the way. Moreover, the subhead on the story directly refers to that issue: “Move hints at Worry Over Private Equity in Public Markets.”

A bagatelle, by the way, is a light musical composition, which I thought was a compliment. Ah well, so much for trying to be pithy.

As for the first commenter’s complaint that Calstrs clearly has transparency into Blackstone’s investments – well, I agree. When I’m talking transparency, I’m referring to the fact that if Blackstone were private, few others would know what it was up to except for its LPs. Calstrs clearly seemed to favor that situation. – Robert Teitelman

I couldn't agree with Teitelman more and I appreciate the insight he offered. Everything he says about the WSJ piece is accurate. He perfectly identifies the nuance of a real issue in our corner of finance. Understanding the complexities of our industry and being able to express them is exactly what I look for in a journalistic piece, not the silly raise-a-strawman-so-we-can-sell-more-newspapers pap peddled all too frequently by the WSJ.
Also, Mr. (or Ms.) ??? posted at 12:40, in writing, "pithy" is a compliment. So if you can't use English correctly, please refrain entirely. Reading drivel such as yours is tiresome and wastes all our time.