Blackstone Rocks Wall Street

Updated from March 16

Private equity is going public -- and with a vengeance.

Just a month after the pathbreaking Fortress(FIG Quote) initial public offering, Friday's chatter had Steve Schwarzman's Blackstone Group testing the IPO waters. On Saturday, The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, reported Blackstone is in the advanced stages of planning an IPO for about 10% of its management company.

A spokeswoman at Blackstone declined to comment Friday, but the timing is certainly striking. Just two weeks ago at the Super Return private equity conference in Frankfurt, Schwarzman decried the notion of an IPO. ...