Blackstone’s Tom Hill Sells $19 Million of Stock Advances

Tom Hill, head of Blackstone Group LP (BX)’s hedge funds-of-funds business, sold $19 million of stock in three weeks as the New York-based investment firm’s shares gained about 25 percent this year.

Hill sold a combined 1 million shares on March 5 and Feb. 22, according to regulatory filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. This week’s sale yielded $10.5 million, and he got $8.55 million from the previous transaction.

Blackstone’s stock has benefited from rising markets, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average surging to record levels this week, as well as a 30 percent increase in the company’s 2012 profit. Hill, 64, who joined the firm in 1993 and has built its hedge-fund management business to $46.1 billion of assets, was paid $13.7 million in 2012 salary, bonus and stock awards, up 7 percent from the previous year.

The firm’s president, Tony James, has also taken advantage of the stock’s performance. James received about $64.2 million selling 3.5 million shares from Feb. 13 to Feb. 15, according to a separate regulatory filing last month.

Blackstone, the world’s largest private-equity firm by assets, sold shares to the public in June 2007 at $31 apiece. Its stock dived during the U.S. financial crisis, reaching a low of $3.87 in February 2009, and has since more than quadrupled in value to close yesterday at $19.05.

Peter Rose, a company spokesman, declined to comment on the share sales. The firm oversaw $210.2 billion as of Dec. 31.

To contact the reporter on this story: Devin Banerjee in New York at dbanerjee2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Christian Baumgaertel at cbaumgaertel@bloomberg.net