Peter Peterson, the Genius Pigpen of Blackstone“He would arrive at meetings with yellow Post-It notes adorning his suit jacket, placed there by his secretary to remind him to attend some charity ball or to call a CEO the next morning.”
Ben Stiller Is Moving Back in With His ParentsWell, sort of. He bought a $10 million duplex in the same building as his ’rents. Plus, Stephen Schwarzman has fallen off ‘Vanity Fair’s’ New Establishment list; Dennis Kozlowski appeals, and the ‘WSJ’ proudly unveils its new magazine, in today’s industry news.
company town
Fannie and Freddie Get Some Good NewsThe mortgage giants have seen their largest profits in ten years. Plus, who buys a friend a $3 million apartment, and who wants a truck depot in Soho?
company town
‘People’ Gets the Last Giggle Over Brangelina Baby PicsTurns out the issue whose cover displayed little Vivienne and Knox sold 2.6 million copies, the fourth-largest selling issue of all time for the mag. Plus, the rest of our industry news roundup.
company town
Rupert Murdoch Isn’t Ruining the ‘Journal’ — the Reporters AreMEDIA
• You know how the stories in The Wall Street Journal have gotten punchier and shorter? Yeah, well, apparently it is not the great soft hand of Rupert Murdoch making these changes. The journalists are cleaving to him of their own free will. “Our people are doing this in advance, I think, to make him happy,” a reporter told the Washington Post. [WP]
• “Is the Hillary Clinton campaign staffed with morons or do they just not care anymore? It is unbelievable that on the night before the Texas and Ohio (and Vermont and Rhode Island) primaries they would set up an impromptu press room in a freaking men’s bathroom, complete with urinals.” [HuffPo]
• Fox and CNN to go head-to-head. [Mixed Media/Portfolio]
white men with money
On the Inside, Steve Schwarzman Is Still Just a Short Kid From Philly Blackstone CEO and co-founder Steve Schwarzman comes across almost like a real-live human being in James B. Stewart’s profile of him in this week’s New Yorker, which traces the titan’s childhood as the son of a dry-goods store owner in suburban Philadelphia (at 15, he is stymied by his father’s reluctance to expand said store into a national chain, “like Sears”) through the infamously lavish 60th-birthday party that helped make Schwarzman the poster child for greed and self-indulgence of the new gilded age. But despite the fact that he has a net worth of at least $10 billion, “I don’t feel like a wealthy person,” Schwarzman tells Stewart, cracking a window into his psyche. Contrary to his actions, he’s also not entirely obtuse: “Private equity is seen as a symbol of the people who are prospering from a world in flux. That’s a lightning-rod situation.”
gossipmonger
Judith Regan Says Murdoch’s Wife Smacks Him AroundA diner at the Waverly Inn overheard Judith Regan claiming that Rupert Murdoch is regularly hit by wife Wendi. Marilyn Manson may or may not have been asking for coke and Adderall in the bathroom of Bette last week. Helena Christensen’s 7-year-old son, Mingus, is a chess genius. Howard Stern thinks Beth Ostrosky has invited too many people to their wedding. Lance Armstrong chatted with Blackstone’s Pete Peterson at the Four Seasons. Cindy Adams claims that Colin Powell told friends that he sympathizes with General Petraeus but that he’s “digging his own foxhole” (or some approximation thereof).
