The Blackstone Future Women Leaders Program is an annual event that brings sophomore women to our New York and London offices for sessions on resume writing, skill building and networking. Participants are given the opportunity to interact with senior professionals at the firm and like-minded peers, and walk away with a stronger understanding of what it’s like to work in finance and at Blackstone. Since its founding, the Future Women Leaders program has been instrumental in increasing the number of female applicants to the firm, ensuring greater diversity in each analyst class and laying the foundation for more women in senior leadership positions in the future.

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Across every borough, neighborhood, and community in New York City, families are united behind one wish: that their children will have the access and opportunity to fulfill their dreams. Making this wish a reality, however, is more complicated.

Increasingly, current household income determines a child’s future. Nationally, fewer than 10% of children from low-income households graduate from college, compared to nearly 80% from high-income households.

While programs like free college and student loan debt forgiveness are being debated nationally, statewide efforts like the Excelsior Scholarship have made college more affordable for some New York students, and CUNY provides affordable tuition options for many students, we need to provide support that can cover both tuition and non-tuition costs that pose barriers to higher education for many families.

To bridge the gap of what’s possible for New York City’s youth, we need meaningful collaboration among...

The leveraged buyout of Merlin Entertainments was the largest take-private deal in Europe in 2019 and the £3.7bn-equivalent financing pushed boundaries. For its ability to tap both the US dollar and euro loan and bond markets successfully, while achieving momentous pricing and benchmark documentation, the deal is IFR’s Financing Package and EMEA Leveraged Loan of the Year.

Public-to-private deals dominated 2019, propping up the leveraged finance market in what was otherwise a lacklustre year. It seems only right to recognise the largest – and in some ways trickiest – one of all, for UK theme park and attraction operator Merlin Entertainments.

Merlin was already a well-known credit in the leveraged markets. Blackstone bought Merlin for £102m in 2005 and then Merlin bought control of Legoland. In eight years, Merlin more than tripled its number of attractions to 99 and multiplied its annual visitor numbers ninefold to 54 million, helped by large acquisitions...

“My philanthropy has brought a tremendous sense of joy and meaning to my life and I anticipate I will find more ways to give back during my lifetime. I’m proud that many of my projects have prompted the philanthropic participation of others, either in terms of giving to the same institution or giving to a similar effort elsewhere.”