Blackstone, BlackRock, Blackwater,

THESE are names that it is easy to get confused.

Blackstone is an alternatives asset manager that is also a publicly owned corporation (Nasdaq: BX).

It recently exceeded $1 trillion in assets under management (AUM) for the first time. This means that its AUM figure is higher than the gross domestic product of the Netherlands.

Blackstone was founded in 1985 with $400,000 in capital. If my arithmetuic is right, one needs to multiply 400 K by 2,500 to get a trillion. What a ride.

Yes, there are asset managers that have grown larger and quicker. BlackRock for example has a larger AUM than its near namesake Blackstone. Indeed, BlackRock had close to $8.6 trillion the last time I checked. But most such others, including BlackRock, are in the high volume, low margin business of managing ETFs. .But Blackstone is a proper investment house: real estate, hedge funds, credit.

Blackwater? It has a name that sounds like it ought to be doing the same thing as the other two. But Blackwater is the former name of a group of mercenaries, i.e. a private military contractor, now known as Academi.

Blackwater, under that name, became notorious due to the NisourSquare Massacre in Baghdad, Iraq, in 2007.

So: what is my point? Why did I bring these three very different entities together?

I have no point. They have very similar names, so I said ... what the heck.

Here we are.

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