In case you were wondering how rich Blackstone’s top executives are getting today, DealZone has a spread sheet set up with names, individual units, and current value (see below). Some are also wondering why nobody from Blackstone showed up to ring the opening bell at the NYSE Euronext. We’ll come back to that later. (Apparently Blackstone has said they’ll come back at a later date).

At this hour, with Blackstone trading at around $36, CEO and Co-Founder Stephen Schwarzman’s 249,808,170 shares (sorry, units) are worth $8.99 billion. That places his worth well above Rupert Murdoch’s stake in News Corp of $7.7 billion, and brings Schwarzman ever closer to Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer’s $12.6 billion worth of stock in the software company, according to Equilar.

Blackstone Co-Founder Peter Peterson for his part, has also had a pretty nice day. Not only will Blackstone pay him a one-off payment of more than $1.8 billion post-IPO, but his remaining 43,807,135 units are currently worth $1.58 billion.

Blackstone President Tony James has 52,138,201 units listed, and those are worth $1.87 billion.

Their one day gains, in terms of unit value: Schwarzman made $1.25 billion today; Peterson made $219 million; James made $260 million.

In the meantime, some on Wall Street wondered where Schwarzman was on Friday morning. As the IPO of the year (so far), Schwarzman was expected to ring the opening bell at the NYSE, seeing as Blackstone’s shares priced there. So who rang the opening bell? That would be JMP Group Inc.

Steve? Pete? Where were you?

Sources say that Schwarzman politely declined the invitation. In light of all the attention Blackstone’s received, and all the headlines about his wealth and lavish lifestyle, he thought it a good idea to stay out of the limelight, a move not unnoticed by the New York Post.

Traders seemed to agree:   

“(Schwarzman’s) been too high profile. He didn’t want to make an appearance and stand around with brokers today. The IPO already got more press than it needs. It was wise to stay away and let the markets do their work,” said Peter Costa, of NYSE member firm Lipari Partners, Inc. 
      

The official NYSE line is they invite all IPO companies to ring the open bell, but Blackstone declined, requesting a chance to come back at a later date.

(Additional reporting by Anupreeta Das) 

(Photo: Traders crowd around Blackstone kiosk at the NYSE. Reuters file)