knew; and advising Firestone Tire & Rubber when it sold out to Japan’s Bridgestone, Inc., for $2.6 billion, a deal Schwarzman guided. As Peterson and Schwarzman hoped, the M&A business gave the firm access to executives that eventually turned up LBO opportunities. Blackstone’s first buyout developed that way. It was puny compared with KKR’s big deals—a mere $640 million—but it would
