COMMENT As he listened to the pleas of Stephen Schwarzman and Peter Peterson for a $100m (£50m, €75m) investment in Blackstone, their newly launched private equity group, Garnett Keith had one question on his mind.
“Could these guys build and run an organisation?” Mr Keith, then vice-chairman of the US insurer Prudential, recalls asking himself during a frugal lunch with the two former Lehman Brothers bankers in 1985.
