Word on the Street is that Blackstone’s new ticker symbol will be BX – as in bucks, and lots of ‘em, reports Wall Street Journal’s Deal Journal blog.
While the ‘B’ is a necessary part of any ticker symbol for the soon-to-be public private equity firm, it is the discretionary part – the ‘X’ – that Deal Journal says has a strong pedigree among Wall Street tickers.
The blog cites three examples of X-ified companies: NYX (the New York Stock Exchange), XOM (Exxon-Mobil) and, the boldest of them all, US Steel, which lists under the single X character.
Last week, Deal Journal considered some other suggestions for a Blackstone ticker, including:
- BLK – “Logical as it sounds, it isn’t available. BlackRock, the former Blackstone unit run by Schwarzman pal Larry Fink, already took it.”
- B – “Big, important companies like Citigroup or AT&T often take a one-letter ticker, but alas, precision metal component maker Barnes Group beat Blackstone to the punch. Then again, if they really wanted it, they could just buy the company.”
- STON – “This one doesn’t work either, because of StoneMor Partners, the Pennsylvania cemetery operator. Plus, there’s the drug connotation, which a Republican like Schwarzman probably wouldn’t be too keen on”
- TOP – “Probably not a good idea to tip off all those potential investors that this could be a sign of where we are in the private-equity cycle”
- MINT – “Isn’t this basically what they are now? But then they’d have to move to the Nasdaq, and Schwarzman seems more like an NYSE kind of guy.”
- KKR – “What better way to get the best of Henry Kravis of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Schwarzman’s rival for the King-of-Private-Equity title?”
- PE – “As in private equity. Someone’s going to take it, so why not the first one to market?”