There’s a lot of unjustified hand-wringing these days among economists, and others, about how quickly interest rates have risen in the wake of the Federal Reserve’s 18-month-long campaign to reverse its easy-money policies that followed the financial crisis of 2008.
But not from Steve Schwarzman, the billionaire co-founder of the uber-successful Blackstone Group. Few would question his intelligence or investing prowess. In an August interview, he extolled the virtues of an investment he had found of senior secured debt that was yielding close to 13 per cent.
“For those of you who are not financial people,” he told me, “it doesn’t get simpler than lending somebody senior debt and have the security of all their assets and make 13 per cent. How wonderful.”