Prakash Melwani to Join The Blackstone Group

New York The Blackstone Group announced today that Prakash A. Melwani will join the firm’s private equity group in a senior partner role, providing additional leadership to the group and serving as a key member of the firm’s private equity investment committee.

“Prakash is a leading figure in the private equity industry who has maintained a record of superior performance over many years,” said Stephen A. Schwarzman, President and CEO of Blackstone. He added, “Prakash will be a great addition to our senior partner ranks.”

The Blackstone Group, a private investment bank with offices in New York and London, has raised a total of approximately $25 billion for alternative asset investing. Over $14 billion of that has been for Private Equity investing including Blackstone Capital Partners IV, the largest institutional private equity fund ever raised at $6.45 billion. Currently the firm has about $8 billion of committed capital available for private equity investing.

Prior to joining Blackstone, Mr. Melwani, a founder of Vestar Capital Partners in 1988, was Vestar’s Chief Investment Officer. Previous to that, he was with the management buyout group at The First Boston Corporation and with N.M. Rothschild in Hong Kong and London.

Mr. Melwani was born in Singapore and raised in Hong Kong and London. He has a first class honors degree from Cambridge University, and an MBA as a Baker Scholar and Loeb Rhoades Fellow from Harvard Business School.

The Blackstone Group, a private investment bank with offices in New York and London, was founded in 1985. In addition to Private Equity Investing, The Blackstone Group’s core businesses are Private Real Estate Investing, Corporate Debt Investing, Marketable Alternative Asset Management, Mergers and Acquisitions Advisory, and Restructuring and Reorganization Advisory.