Blackstone to Launch Blackstone Altius Advisors, an Asia-Focused Event-Driven Investment Business

The Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX) today announced that Aaron Nieman will

be launching Blackstone Altius Advisors, a new event-driven strategy

focusing on opportunities in the Asia Pacific region. A global, highly

experienced investment team will be headquartered in Hong Kong, with

additional professionals based in Tokyo, Mumbai, and New York.
Mr. Nieman, a Senior Managing Director joined Blackstone from S.A.C.

Capital Management, where he was a Managing Director in the Canvas

Capital Management division. At S.A.C., Mr. Nieman was instrumental in

creating a successful investment team responsible for merger arbitrage

and event-driven investments in the Asia Pacific region. Before that

Mr. Nieman was largely responsible for building Lehman Brothers´ Tokyo-based Global Trading Strategies Division (formerly known as the

Risk Arbitrage Division), focusing on Asia Pacific investments. Mr.

Nieman began his career at Lehman Brothers in New York.
Stephen A. Schwarzman, Chairman, CEO and Co-founder of the Blackstone

Group, said, "Aaron has a superb history of

developing teams and investing in Asia. He will add greater depth and

intellectual capital to Blackstone´s wide

range of alternative investment businesses, and we are delighted that he

has chosen to join us."
Antony Leung, Chairman, Blackstone Greater China, added, "As

Blackstone continues to aggressively seek opportunities within Asia

Aaron and his team will provide additional investment capability that

will bolster our presence in the region."
"Blackstone has a superior global alternative

investment platform. It also employs some of the best professionals in

the industry. The synergies that exist within Blackstone´s

various businesses will provide us with a significant advantage

investing in the Asia Pacific markets," said

Aaron Nieman, Senior Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer of

Altius Advisors.
Mr. Nieman has recruited an experienced and talented team of investment

professionals to Altius, including Christopher Pesce as Chief Operating

Officer. Mr. Pesce was formerly Global Head of Prime Brokerage at Bank

of America and, before that, with Goldman Sachs both in New York and

Hong Kong.
In addition to Blackstone Altius Advisors, Blackstone´s other businesses

in Asia include its corporate private equity fund (Blackstone Capital

Partners), its real estate opportunity fund (Blackstone Real Estate

Partners), its fund of hedge funds business and two closed-end mutual

funds (The India Fund and The Asia Tigers Fund).
The Blackstone Group
The Blackstone Group L.P. is a leading global alternative asset manager

and provider of financial advisory services. Its alternative asset

management businesses include the management of corporate private equity

funds, real estate opportunity funds, funds of hedge funds, mezzanine

funds, senior debt funds, proprietary hedge funds and closed-end mutual

funds. The Blackstone Group also provides various financial advisory

services, including mergers and acquisitions advisory, restructuring and

reorganization advisory and fund placement service. Further information

is available at www.blackstone.com