Photograph by Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg

Stephen Schwarzman, chairman and chief executive officer of Blackstone Group LP.

Steve Schwarzman doesn’t want to lose his right-hand man.

Asked whether his chief operating officer, Hamilton “Tony” James, could be the next Treasury secretary, the Blackstone Group CEO told CNBC this morning that such a prospect worries him — not because James wouldn’t fit the role, but because of his loss to Blackstone.

“That would be terrible for us for sure,” said Schwarzman, co-founder of what is today the world’s largest private-equity and alternative-asset manager. “It’s the last thing I would want.”

James, a supporter of President Barack Obama who held a campaign fundraiser for the president earlier this year, has been rumored to be a contender for the position that will be left by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner after January, as Obama says he would “love” l to pick a business leader for his economic team.

Schwarzman — who in 2002 hired James in somewhat of an act of faith, yielding some power within rapidly growing Blackstone — said his No. 2 “would be terrific” in the role. “He’s a terrific guy,” Schwarzman said, smiling.

That said, James might not be the absolute best choice, given conditions in Washington. In Schwarzman’s thinking, Obama will probably choose someone already involved in the current fiscal negotiations, such as White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew.

“It would be somebody who is dealing with these types of complex issues,” he said, “because I don’t think they’ll all get resolved.”

Among the rumored, Lew remains a likely choice. Erskine Bowles, who co-chaired Obama’s fiscal commission, told CNBC last month that he wouldn’t be the next Treasury secretary, and Larry Fink, co-founder and CEO of the money manager BlackRock, said last week he won’t leave his job for a role in Washington.

Original post is Schwarzman Hopes to Hold James by Political Capital.

Photograph by Thomas Lee/Bloomberg

Jonathan M. Nelson, chief executive officer of Providence Equity Partners Inc.

Jonathan Nelson, the billionaire co-founder of Providence Equity Partners, supported Hillary Clinton and contributed to Barack Obama in the 2008 election. But as the private-equity executive told Bloomberg TV’s Cristina Alesci, Nelson is backing Mitt Romney this time around, saying he can’t support a candidate who attacks how he makes a living.

Dozens of investment managers have continued to support Obama for re-election while his campaign attacks Romney’s business record at Bain Capital– paying upwards of $35,800 each to hear from the president at New York fundraisers.

Not Nelson, whose Rhode Island firm owns companies including Univision Communications and the cable-TV network of the New York Yankees. He has given $2,500 to Romney and $5,000 to the Private Equity Growth Capital Council, the industry’s main lobbying group in Washington. In 2008, Nelson gave Obama and Clinton $2,300 apiece.

Buyout executives who have continued to support Obama include Tony James, president of the Blackstone Group, who threw a $35,800-a-plate dinner for Obama in May that featured several of James’s colleagues from the investing world.

Meanwhile, when asked about his criticism of Romney’s career and its qualifications for the presidency, Obama has said, “This is what this campaign is going to be about.”

Original post is Trading Obama, Clinton for Romney by Political Capital.

Photograph by David T. Foster III/Charlotte Observer/MCT /Landov

Jim Rogers, left, CEO of Duke Energy, and Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx make an official announcement regarding the city of Charlotte being named the site of the 2012 Democratic National Convention.

President Obama is making sure that 60 of his richest supporters in Manhattan meet a friend of his from Charlotte — someone who could sure use a little cash.

No, it’s not Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, who inadvertently lended his bank’s name to Obama’s re-election effort when Obama decided to move his acceptance speech to the 75,000 capacity outdoor Bank of America stadium.

It’s Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers, the co-chair of the Charlotte host committee, which is putting on the Democrats nominating convention in September.

Tonight, Rogers will be accompanying Obama to the apartment of Blackstone Group LLC’s President Tony James, according to a person familiar with the matter. Rogers could use some $100,000 checks, the most the committee will accept from individuals.

His fundraisers back in Charlotte are chafing under a ban, imposed by headquarters in Chicago, on cold hard corporate cash, which has traditionally been the mother’s milk of party conventions. With a $36 million budget, the Charlotte committee is still short more than $20 million, according to a person familiar with the funding strategy.

Bereft of corporate money, convention planners have looked to the labor unions to help close their funding gap. But they have been told to expect, at most, $4 million from from organized labor this year, less than half of the $8 million the unions contributed four years ago, said the person. The number could eventually be less than $1 million.

Original post is Obama Wants His PE Friends to Meet His Party Planner by Political Capital.

Photograph by Tina Paul/Camera Press via Redux

Barack Obama posters in New York.

President Barack Obama is heading into the den of private equity tonight with an urgent plea: Please re-elect me.

His visit to New York apartment of Tony James, the number two at Blackstone, the world’s largest private equity firm, comes on the same day that Obama’s campaign has released a new ad that assails Mitt Romney’s experience in private equity.

The two-minute spot blames Romney for chasing profit while losing jobs at a now shuttered steel mill in Kansas City, Missouri.

Tickets for the dinner are the standard $35,800. Sixty guests are expected.

Obama typically gives brief remarks and then goes table to table, for some light chit-chat, when JP Morgan’s $2 billion trading loss could come up. But the president will have to be careful in talking about private equity. Obama’s host has previously warned the president against demonizing the industry.

“The truth is that private equity creates jobs and is necessary for a healthy economy,” James told Bloomberg last February. “Last year we created 4.6 percent new jobs organically in America. By contrast, last year the U.S. economy created 1.8 percent new jobs.”

The chairman of Blackstone, Stephen Schwarzman, was an early Wall Street backer of Romney’s, in part, because they teamed up on some 80s buy-outs. One of those deals returned 24 times profit for Blackstone, but led to some jobs losses in the rail industry.

Original post is Obama Pays His Own Visit to House of Private Equity by Political Capital.

Photograph by Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images

Occupy Wall Street protesters protest Mitt Romney in front of the Waldorf Astoria hotel during his campaign fundraiser in New York on March 14, 2012.

Tony James knows it’s not over.

The president of New York-based Blackstone Group — a firm that helped define the modern private equity landscape and now owns everything from Hilton Hotels to Legoland — said the assault on the buyout business is bound to resume.

With private equity poster boy Mitt Romney as the GOP nominee, James believes the attacks that exploded during the primaries will come back as the general election heats up.

“There were some pretty bad hits to the industry” as fellow Republicans like Newt Gingrich criticized Romney’s leveraged buyout past, James told reporters today on a conference call. “I expect the industry will take more blows from the campaign.”

The Obama campaign told donors in the financial services world earlier this year that the president won’t go after Wall Street, a sentiment James pointed out today. That won’t stop the so-called super-PACs, he said. Those well-funded, technically unaffiliated groups are likely to take dead aim at the lucrative corner of investing world where Romney made his fortune as the founder and CEO of Bain Capital.

James himself is an Obama guy, and is set to hold a fundraiser for the president this spring at his Connecticut home. That puts the 61-year-old on the opposite side of the aisle from his boss, Steve Schwarzman, who already threw a Manhattan fundraiser for Romney last year.

Blackstone, with $190 billion in assets spread across private equity, real estate and hedge funds, has been among the firms aiming to change the conversation about private equity, especially as it relates to jobs. James reminded reporters on the call, scheduled to discuss the firm’s first-quarter earnings, that Blackstone-owned companies increased employment in the U.S. by 4.6 percent last year, versus 1.3 percent for the broader economy.

Original post is Blackstone’s Bracing for More Romney-Related Heat by Political Capital.