For those prudent speculators who know that hind sight and fore sight both have value as lenses, there was disturbing news today: Blackstone wants out of part of its health care and energy ports.
kkr is getting rid of dollar general.
(did you know that all those dollar general stores sprinkled into all the small towns and neighborhoods where wmt won’t go or has left are part of the lbo monster?)
This whole tactic is being spun as gaining liquidity, freeing opportunity, and allowing greater participation.
The prudent speculator can read that as “old insiders wanting to cash out, present holding are in stalled growth, and finding fish who will bite.”
While the soon to be traded nyse:kkr, and its present proxy, nyse:kfn are, imho, well worth looking at as basket plays for a long term recovery, and there are the occasional clients who did well by listening to me in march, and now have a free ride and some $roi, the worrisome factor here is that both blackstone and kkr feel some serious need for loose cash.
that indicates that they see some bottom feeding to be done, and that parts of healthcare, retail, and energy are gettihg ready to stall.
personally, i am a major fan of “stalled petro” and gasoline getting locked by shrinking demand and higher taxes @ $2.37 - $2.63.
removing access to irrationally cheap chinese imports? also a good idea. (but..what part of the move out of dollar general comes from us/chinese currency adjustments and the ensuing “price inflation” on bottom end goods??)
skimming health care salaries? hmmmm..
if there was less to skim, the sink hole that is absorbing 20% of gdp might stop growing so fast.
The upside of all this is that these two bottom feeding sharks will be looking for small, distressed but nimble places to play.
The prudent speculator will be watching with another eye for the places these 2 are looking.
Posted under business
This post was written by admin on October 12, 2009
