Blackstone Group has acquired a minority stake in private equity firm Leonard Green & Partners.
The acquisition was made through Blackstone Strategic Capital Holdings Fund, a vehicle managed by Blackstone Alternative Asset Management.
"We had looked at dozens of potential private equity deals in the past and Leonard Green & Partners is the firm we wanted to partner with given their track record of investment excellence, the diversity of their business, and the quality and depth of the management team," said J. Tomilson Hill, vice chairman of Blackstone Group and president and CEO of Blackstone Alternative Asset Management, in an emailed statement.
A person familiar with the transaction said the stake is for less than 15%. It is the first private equity transaction for the Blackstone Strategic Capital Holdings Fund, which has previously raised more than $3 billion to buy stakes of 15% to 25% in hedge funds. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
A Leonard Green spokeswoman confirmed the deal but declined to comment further. The company's seventh private equity fund, Green Equity Investors VII, closed at $9.6 billion in 2016. The firm's total AUM could not be learned by press time.
