https://www.cgccomics.com/news/article/9253/
“Blackstone (NYSE:BX) announced today that funds managed by its Tactical Opportunities business (“Blackstone”) have agreed to acquire a majority stake in the Certified Collectibles Group (“CCG”) in a transaction valuing the company at more than $500 million. Mark Salzberg, CCG’s founder, and Steven R. Eichenbaum, CCG’s CEO, will retain a significant minority stake. Additional investors in today’s transaction include Roc Nation; Michael Rubin, Founder and Executive Chairman of Fanatics; SC.Holdings, a growth equity platform; Mastry, founded by Rudy Cline-Thomas; Andre Iguodala; Daryl Morey, President of Basketball Operations for the Philadelphia 76ers; and Main Street Advisors, a leading investment advisory firm to prominent athletes, recording artists, and other leaders across entertainment and business.”
Yea was just about to post this but now I dont have to!
I might have them confused with Blackrock, but they are also buying up single family homes. 15% of single family homes in America are owned by megacorps.
The rising Corporatocracy doesn’t want you to have equity or capital. Everything must be rented or soem form of a subscription plan.
Yup black rock is the parent company. They’ve been on a buying spree
Expect annual, if not more frequent, price increases now that there are multiple shareholders to satisfy.
Jaz-Z trying to tie up his assets? Divorce incoming? 
Less is more… my goal later in life is to own almost nothing myself. Can’t take any of this shit with me… I’m gonna strive for memories instead of just “stuff”…
The less you own, the less they can take away!
But soon enough they’ll find a way to own/wipe your memories too…
Okay, so is this going to be good or bad for those of us who send stuff to CGC? Like, what does this actually mean?
It means, now they answer to shareholders who normally ruin the quality businesses carry because the business now focuses and caters to shareholders before the actual customers…
The only positive I can see in this is now they actually will start behaving like a real business. Y’know - have procedures, have a QC department that functions, perform annual reviews of employees and get rid of the dregs. Maybe even an engineering staff that concentrates on appropriate packaging.
Maybe, just maybe, this Daffy Duck Disneyland will function with all the other headaches that reporting to shareholders brings, but actually brings some good with it too. 'Cos it aint good now. That’s for sure.
That’s if they operate like a good business… if this is the same company that is indeed buying up family homes just to prevent people from buying them so they can just rent/lease them out forever, doesn’t sound like a very ethical company to me. I didn’t use CGC before (I only buy the occasional slabbed book seldomly), so makes no difference to me.
I simply desire a quality product that I can stand by when I sell.
Not a 9.6 that looks like it’s been dragged through hell (and then some).
Or a delivered packaged with broken cases.
If poor delivered product continues; followed by loss of customer confidence and customer base (me) - I’m ok with heads flying
I see so much complaining about black stone + black rock (whatever it’s called) and their tactics … By the same ppl that swear by the “free market” and are quick to yell “socialism bad!” Or “big government bad!” (Not talking about CHU here … Rather just in general)
Is this not just a result of the so called free market tho? Multi billion dollar private equity firms buying up everything in sight because they have the means to do so, and because sellers are selling? Why would a capitalist be upset with this? 
Also, wouldn’t curbing such behavior depend on big government stepping in and doing something about it… Via regulations or some other means? And wouldn’t such measures be contrary to a free market?
Shrug 
Without much rhyme or reason, there is a consensus point where people agree the ultimate result of a truly free market-monopolistic control of all markets in one entity or person- is bad. That’s functionally a dictatorship through economic means rather than political. Where people of varying political colors differ is a matter of severity on that spectrum and when to intervene. Both sides of the aisle right now pretty much agree that they’ve let anti-trust enforcement go lax when it comes to big tech companies. It’s more a tolerance of concentration of power that dictates the decision to crack down on these things rather than a definition you can actually point to. Many things rise to the paper definition of unlawful restraints on trade. Single digit percentages get dealt with.
During my time at an attorney general’s office in antitrust enforcement, I wrote an analysis on potato farmers fixing prices. Obviously we didn’t gang up on them. They’re potato farmers after all.
What I’m getting at is that it’s hard to define what it is about securities and investment firms buying single family residences that is actually wrong. My sole client is a real estate development company. We own malls, office buildings, research campuses, and residential developments. Mostly apartments or townhomes, but we have institutional investors. We have the Wells Fargo’s of the world who invest. We also have investments firms of smaller size, but similar business model, to Blackstone as equity partners in some of these residential projects. Now, we don’t buy individual homes and rent them. Mostly because that is a lot of administrative hassle for relatively low return per square foot. But, unconventional as it may be, buying single family homes to rent is one step away from renting an apartment building.
Many upper middle class entrepreneurs start by buying and renting duplexes and they do it by holding those homes in LLCs. It’s hard to draw the line and define what it is we should be regulating. We can hope that these large firms find that they’re return isn’t worth the overhead dealing with maintaining hundreds of stand alone homes, their yards, electrical systems, plumbing, etc., etc. they also have to bring all those homes up to code for occupancy or risk getting sued. I think time will prove that the model of renting out these houses is not resource efficient in the long run.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and feedback, sir. Always appreciate the views and perspective of others.
No problem. I’m also not saying any of the state of things in my post above is right or that I agree with it. It’s just the way things are.
Hey, they’re just serving the part of the market that wants to own nothing and be happy about it.