blackstone

On October 13, 2026, dating app Bumble Inc. (NASDAQ: BMBL) announced that it has reached a definitive agreement to be acquired by Ithaca Holdings, a holding company with a long-term investment in technology businesses, in an all-cash transaction valued at $1.3 billion. Common stockholders will receive $6.05 in cash for each share of Class A common stock, representing a premium of approximately 138% over the unaffected closing price on October 9, 2026, and a premium of approximately 119% over the volume-weighted average price as of that date.The special committee, with the assistance of independent legal and financial advisors, determined that the transaction is in the best interests of common stockholders and recommended that the board approve it. The board unanimously approved the transaction, with founder Whitney Wolfe Herd recusing herself from the deliberation and vote. A Blackstone affiliate and Wolfe Herd subsequently provided written consent to approve the transaction, constituting the required shareholder approval; shareholders will receive an information statement in accordance with Delaware law and federal securities laws.Upon completion, Ithaca co-CEOs Ravi Gupta and John Hegeman will serve as co-CEOs of Bumble and will work alongside Wolfe Herd. Bumble will be privatized, with offices in London, Austin, and New York City, and is expected to remain based in Austin. The company plans to file its third quarter Form 10-Q with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission by November 9, 2026, and will not issue an earnings press release or hold a conference call due to the transaction.

According to Dealroom.co citing Bloomberg News, a consortium of 10 banks has provided Crux AI with a $22 billion loan secured by chips. Crux AI is the AI cloud service joint venture launched by Blackstone and Alphabet in May, which officially started last week.The loan will be used to purchase Google-customized TPUs. Crux AI has received a $5 billion equity investment from Blackstone, with Google providing TPUs, software, and services, planning to produce the first batch of 500 megawatts by 2027. Named lending institutions include Goldman Sachs, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Barclays, BNP Paribas, and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.

According to Forbes, Anthropic, Blackstone, and Goldman Sachs have jointly established an AI-native enterprise service company called "Ode," with an investment of $1.5 billion.Ode is positioned as an AI implementation consulting firm, with core services including identifying business processes suitable for AI transformation, deploying AI engineers, developing customized applications and agents, automating task processes, and assisting companies with regulatory compliance issues. The company will focus on helping client enterprises implement the Claude model under Anthropic.

According to Bloomberg, Blackstone Inc. is in preliminary discussions with investors to assess the feasibility of raising a second large-scale debt financing for Anthropic to support its plan to procure Google AI chips. Sources revealed that a preliminary proposal put forward by Blackstone had a scale of at least $36 billion.The scale, structure of the financing, and whether Blackstone will ultimately lead the deal are still under discussion, and relevant details may change. This financing plan reflects that AI companies are acquiring computing resources through large-scale capital operations. As the demand for training and inference of large models continues to grow, AI companies are seeking new financing methods to support the construction of expensive computing infrastructure.

According to Bloomberg, AirTrunk, a data center operator under Blackstone Inc., has selected partner banks and plans to conduct a real estate investment trust (REIT) initial public offering (IPO) in Singapore.According to informed sources, the fundraising scale for this IPO is expected to be around $1.5 billion, with the listing work likely to be completed as early as this year. Currently, Citigroup Inc., DBS Group Holdings Ltd., and Jefferies Financial Group Inc. have been chosen to assist in preparing for the listing project.

According to the Financial Times, AI giant Anthropic has finalized a $35 billion private credit financing deal, led by private equity giants Apollo and Blackstone. The funds from this financing will be used to purchase AI chips and expand its AI infrastructure.

According to Reuters, private equity giant Apollo Global Management and Blackstone Group are bringing in more investors for a debt financing deal worth approximately $36 billion to help Anthropic build its artificial intelligence infrastructure.Insiders revealed that this debt financing will be used to purchase Google-customized TPU (Tensor Processing Unit) chips, which will then be leased by Anthropic. Broadcom, which assisted Google in developing the chips, will provide guarantees for the majority of the funds in this transaction.This move is expected to become one of the largest private credit transactions in history and may also be the largest chip financing debt transaction to date. The plan aims to provide computational power support for Anthropic by leveraging Broadcom's creditworthiness.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Alphabet's Google and Blackstone plan to jointly create an artificial intelligence cloud company, centered around Google's proprietary chips, directly competing with rivals like CoreWeave. Blackstone will invest $5 billion in equity capital and hold a majority stake in the company. The deal was officially announced on Monday local time, and the name of the new company has not yet been disclosed.

ChainCatcher news, according to CoinDesk, sources say that MetaMask is expected to announce the launch of its stablecoin mUSD this week and provide more details. Insiders indicate that mUSD has been in preparation and will become an official asset by the end of this month.It is reported that MetaMask will work closely with Bridge, a subsidiary of Stripe, and is also seeking assistance from traditional financial asset management company BlackRock to help provide custody and asset management services for the token.

ChainCatcher news, according to Bloomberg, the White House is preparing an executive order that will provide legal protections for 401(k) retirement plan managers, allowing them to include private market funds, cryptocurrencies, and other alternative assets in their investment options.Blackstone Inc. President Jon Gray stated that once the U.S. paves the way for 401(k) plans to expand into investment areas beyond stocks and bonds, leading firms in the alternative asset industry are most likely to benefit. This move will bring significant changes to the U.S. retirement savings market, providing ordinary investors with more diversified investment channels, while also potentially creating new business growth opportunities for large private equity management firms.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Wall Street Journal, Telegram plans to issue at least $1.5 billion in five-year bonds with an annual interest rate of 9% to repurchase debt issued in 2021 that is set to mature next year. Investors include existing backers Blackstone Group, Abu Dhabi sovereign fund Mubadala, and newly joined hedge fund Citadel.Bondholders will have the option to convert their bonds into shares at a discounted price when Telegram goes public in the future. Despite CEO Pavel Durov being restricted from leaving the country due to allegations of not cooperating with a French police investigation, Telegram is expected to achieve a profit of $540 million in 2024, with monthly active users surpassing 1 billion and paying users exceeding 15 million.

ChainCatcher news, Blackstone seems to have finally started to venture into Bitcoin. As the "largest alternative asset management company in the world" managing over $1 trillion in assets, Blackstone has only purchased slightly more than $1 million of the BlackRock spot Bitcoin ETF (IBIT), while the fund has a size of over $60 billion. According to the filing documents released on Tuesday, Blackstone held this asset in its portfolio as of the end of the fiscal quarter on March 30.According to the filing submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Tuesday, Blackstone held only $1.08 million in IBIT as of the end of March. This is the first time Blackstone has publicly disclosed investments related to cryptocurrency. Back in 2019, Blackstone co-founder and CEO Stephen Schwarzman stated that he had little interest in Bitcoin. "I'm not interested in it because I find it hard to understand," he said at the time.

ChainCatcher news, according to the Financial Times, based on the terms of the deal, several informed sources revealed that a group of new external investors, including a16z, Blackstone Group, Silver Lake Partners, and other large private equity firms, will own about half of TikTok's U.S. business. These sources indicated that the U.S. business will be spun off from its parent company, ByteDance, based in Beijing.TikTok's existing major investors, including General Atlantic, Susquehanna, KKR, and Coatue, will also hold about 30% of the U.S. business.According to individuals involved in the process, these plans are still in the preliminary stages and may change. This was formulated ahead of the U.S. legal deadline on April 5, which requires that unless the Beijing owners sell to a non-Chinese entity, the app will be banned in the U.S.Officials from President Trump’s administration are scheduled to meet on Wednesday to discuss the negotiation status, with several individuals stating that if the president gives approval, the deal could be announced soon. A White House spokesperson stated, "If there is a statement regarding TikTok, it will be made by President Trump."One individual warned that the situation remains unstable, and the White House could still abruptly change plans. According to the terms of the deal, ByteDance will retain less than 20% of the business shares to comply with U.S. legislation, which stipulates that "foreign adversaries" cannot control more than one-fifth of the shares. Informed sources added that the plan will still require several months of further due diligence, structural adjustments, and other corporate financing commitments, which is typical in acquisition transactions, and the structure may change, with some equity supporters potentially increasing or decreasing their proposed investments. One individual stated that these groups will have three to four months to complete the divestiture process.

ChainCatcher news, Blackstone Group President Jon Gray warned investors not to make "knee-jerk reactions" to Trump's tariff antics, but rather to wait and see how potential negotiations unfold. He stated, "Be a little patient." "Observe the evolution of this tariff diplomacy and make investment decisions over a longer period. I think the danger during such a time is that if you do something short-term, you will miss opportunities."As Trump decides on new tariff policies almost daily, the market is anxious about the economic impact of a full-blown trade war. Gray said, "I think you have to take a step back. The government can react, they can decide how to make concessions, and then ultimately it ends up in a different situation."

ChainCatcher news, according to Bloomberg, informed sources revealed that Blackstone Inc. has recently completed a strategic investment of over $500 million in Lancium Inc.Lancium plans to build five data centers in the resource-rich areas of wind and solar energy in West Texas, with a total capacity of over 5 gigawatts, expected to be operational by 2028. The project aims to meet the energy demands of the surge in AI applications, including plans for on-site solar power generation and energy storage facilities.

ChainCatcher news, Blackstone Group's Chief Financial Officer Michael Chae stated that the company is "cautiously optimistic about a soft landing in the U.S.," indicating that this alternative asset management firm bets that the Federal Reserve's efforts to curb inflation will not trigger a recession in the U.S.Blackstone's own inflation gauge shows that inflation in the U.S. has reached 1.7%, excluding housing costs and incorporating other relevant metrics. Chae noted that this would bring the U.S. "to the Federal Reserve's inflation target."Chae mentioned that data collected from Blackstone, the world's largest alternative asset management firm, indicates that the labor market has been softening. CEOs of Blackstone's portfolio companies indicated in a June survey that they expect wage growth to slow next year. While the "revenue growth of Blackstone's global portfolio is slowing," these companies have shown "resilient profit margins."Chae stated, "We are seeing signs of 'animal spirits' returning in the trading markets. If these trends continue, I believe this could lead to a particularly strong market in 2025."

ChainCatcher news, according to Bloomberg, Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman stated that he will raise funds for Trump's campaign to help the Republican frontrunner build a donor base for ultimate victory.It is reported that this billionaire private equity executive and heavyweight political donor has long been a major source of funding for the Republican Party, but he has remained silent for months on whether he would support Trump.Steve Schwarzman expressed that he, like most Americans, is concerned that the country's economic, immigration, and foreign policies are leading the nation in the wrong direction. For these reasons, he plans to vote for change and support Donald Trump for president.

ChainCatcher news, according to AXIOS, Blackstone Group Chairman and CEO Stephen Schwarzman plans to donate to Republican candidate Trump.

ChainCatcher news, according to 8marketcap data, BNB's market capitalization has reached approximately $91.49 billion, surpassing the largest publicly traded investment management company in the United States, Blackstone Group (current market capitalization approximately $90.73 billion), ranking 196th in global asset value.

According to ChainCatcher, sources have revealed that BlackRock, the world's largest asset management company, has not yet indicated a clear intention to launch a spot XRP exchange-traded fund (ETF). This idea comes in the context of the recent approval of a Bitcoin spot ETF by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).There are views that the SEC's divergent stance has resonated in the market, indicating differing opinions within the SEC regarding cryptocurrency ETFs, which brings uncertainty to the approval of other cryptocurrency ETFs like XRP. However, XRP investors and analysts remain vigilant, watching for signs that may indicate future trends in cryptocurrency.