Recent news of GIC acquiring Blackstone's interest in London's Broadgate piqued my interest. It is reported that GIC paid around $1.7 billion pounds (approximately S$3.5 billion) for a 50% stake in the office and retail estate. Blackstone originally purchased that in 2009 for $77 million pounds. Yes, one is a “B” and the other an “M”, which works out to be over 2000% profit in 4 years.

(Update on 31 Dec: The $77 million pounds purchase quoted was based on reports from The Daily Telegraph. However, after looking at other sources, the purchase price was actually $1 billion. $77 million was raised through equity funding, the remainder of 900+ million through debt funding. So, the profit works out to much less astonishing at less than 70% over 4 years taking into account debt interest to be paid. Special thanks to the anonymous comment.)

Who is Blackstone? According ......