May
28
Big Payoff After Blackstone Courted a Saudi Prince
ByA little over a year ago, the private equity titan Stephen A. Schwarzman sat down with Mohammed bin Salman, the deputy crown prince of Saudi Arabia and chairman of the kingdom’s largest sovereign wealth fund, in hopes of expanding their relationship.
Mr. Schwarzman’s company, the Blackstone Group, already counted Prince bin Salman’s Public Investment Fund as a major client. But the American financier now had a bold new idea: Court Saudi money to invest in projects like tunnels, bridges, airports and other sorely needed infrastructure improvements, predominantly in the United States…