The Blackstone Group L.P. (NYSE: BX) is an American-based alternative asset management and financial services company that specializes in private equity, real estate, and credit and marketable alternative investment strategies, as well as financial advisory services, such as mergers and acquisitions (M&A), restructurings and reorganizations, and private placements.

Blackstone's private equity business has been one of the largest investors in leveraged buyout transactions over the last decade, while its real estate business has actively acquired commercial real estate. Since its inception, Blackstone has completed investments in such notable companies as Hilton Worldwide, Equity Office Properties, Republic Services, AlliedBarton, United Biscuits, Freescale Semiconductor and Travelport.

Blackstone was founded in 1985 as a mergers and acquisitions boutique by Peter G. Peterson and Stephen A. Schwarzman, who had previously worked together at Lehman Brothers, Kuhn, Loeb Inc. Over the course of two decades, Blackstone has evolved into one of the world's largest private equity investment firms. In 2007, Blackstone completed a $4 billion initial public offering to become one of the first major private equity firms to list shares in its management company on a public exchange. Blackstone is headquartered at 345 Park Avenue in New York City, with eight additional offices in the United States and offices in London, Paris, Düsseldorf, Sydney, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, Mumbai and Dubai.

Tony James (born 12 April 1953) in Market Drayton, Shropshire is a British musician, best known as a bassist of Generation X and Sigue Sigue Sputnik.

He was originally a member of the punk band London SS, along with Brian James, (later of The Damned), and Mick Jones plus Terry Chimes (both future members of The Clash).

Later, James joined the early punk band Chelsea. The group included Billy Idol (then William Broad) on the guitar, John Towe on drums and Gene October on vocals. Soon they left October to form Generation X (named after a 1960s paperback novel, by Jane Deverson, not to be confused with the 1990s book by Douglas Coupland), a British punk band of the late 1970s.

Tony James—after penning "Russian Roulette" for Stiv Bators and The Lords of the New Church and producing a Sex Gang Children album—formed glam punk band Sigue Sigue Sputnik with fashion designer-cum-singer Martin Degville in the 1980s as his follow-up to Generation X. His "space bass" became the "sput style" trademark.

Douglas Brian "Pete" Peterson (born June 26, 1935, Omaha, Nebraska) was a U.S. Air Force pilot who spent over six years as a prisoner of the North Vietnamese Army after his plane was shot down during the Vietnam War. He returned to Hanoi in 1997 as the first United States Ambassador to Vietnam. He was an ambassador until 2001, after which he devoted himself to philanthropic work.

Peterson grew up in Milton, Iowa and attended college at the University of Tampa. He joined the Air Force and served in Vietnam, where his F4 Phantom was shot down on September 10, 1966. He spent six years in prison, a period he described as "hours and hours of boredom, spliced with moments of stark terror." He was released March 4, 1973.

After the war ended, Peterson entered Central Michigan University in order to earn his Ph.D in finance. He later taught the subject as a professor at Florida State University.

In 1990, Peterson ran as a Democrat for a seat in the United States House of Representatives in Florida's 2nd congressional district. He defeated James W. Grant, a politician who grew unpopular after switching from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party in the middle of his second term.

Antony Leung Kam-chung GBS JP (born 29 January 1952 in Hong Kong with family roots in Shunde, Guangdong) was the former Financial Secretary of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR). He now serves as the chairman of Blackstone Group's Asian office in Hong Kong.

Leung, a former banker and civil service outsider, took the top economic post in one of the world's key financial centres on 1 May 2001. Newspapers said Leung gave up a plump banker's package of more than HK$23 million (US$3 million) a year for a more modest HK$2.45 million.

Before taking the government post on 1 May 2001, Leung served in senior management positions at big international banks in Hong Kong. He joined Chase Manhattan Corporation in 1996, where he rose to the rank of Asia-Pacific chairman.

He oversaw the Asia-Pacific operation of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., which became the No.2 U.S. bank when commercial bank Chase Manhattan bought Wall Street investment firm J.P.Morgan in 2000. But he was relocated to Singapore right before he resigned from the post.

Michael Saul Dell (born February 23, 1965) is an American business magnate and author. He is known as the founder and CEO of Dell, Inc., one of the world’s leading sellers of personal computers (PCs). He is ranked as the 41st richest person in the world on 2012 Forbes Billionaires list, with a net worth of US$15.9 billion as of March 2012. In 2011, his 243.35 million shares of Dell stock were worth $3.5 billion, giving him 12% ownership of the company. His remaining wealth of roughly $10 billion is invested in other companies, and managed by a firm called MSD Capital (named after Dell's initials).

Michael Dell was born to a well-off, Jewish family, on February 23, 1965. The son of an orthodontist and a stockbroker, Dell attended Herod Elementary School in Houston, Texas. In a bid to enter business early, he applied to take a high school equivalency exam at age eight. In his early teens, he invested his earnings from part-time jobs in stocks and precious metals.

Dell purchased his first calculator at age seven and encountered his first teletype machine in junior high, which he programmed after school. At age 15, after playing with computers at Radio Shack, he got his first computer, an Apple II, which he promptly disassembled to see how it worked. Dell attended Memorial High School in Houston, selling subscriptions to the Houston Post in the summer. While making cold calls, Dell observed that newlyweds and people moving into new homes were most likely to buy a subscription. He targeted this demographic group by collecting names from marriage and mortgage applications. Dell earned $18,000 that year, exceeding the annual income of his history and economics teacher.