Blackstone Bullish on Deal Flow

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The Blackstone Group (BX Quote) Friday turned in a third-quarter performance that topped Wall Street expectations by a dime and the preeminent publicly-traded buyout firm hinted that deal flow was primed to pick up.

"We believe the worst is behind us though a recovery could be gradual and uneven," said Steven Schwarzman, the company's chairman and CEO, in a statement. "We see many opportunities to deploy our substantial available capital across each of our asset management businesses with attractive potential risk-return for our fund investors."

The stock reacted favorably, rising 7.6% to $14.93 in early action. Based on Thursday's close, the shares were already up nearly 84% in the past 52 weeks, and the low of last year, $3.55 in late February, seems like a distant memory/missed opportunity. Friday's volume of 1.9 million an hour into the session was already almost half the issue's three-month daily average of 4.1 million.

For the three months ended Sept. 30, Blackstone posted what it terms economic net income of $275.3 million, or 25 cents per unit, up substantially from a year-ago equivalent loss of $502.5 million, or 45 cents a share. Revenue fell to $603.8 million in the latest quarter from $833 million a year earlier, although it did rise on a sequential basis from the second-quarter total of $403.6 million.

Economic net income, as defined by the company, can exclude income taxes and transaction-related items, including charges related to equity-based compensation, the amortization of intangibles and corporate actions including acquisitions, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The figures above include the impact of income taxes.