And in the resolution of another large-scale bankruptcy, a JV of Blackstone, Centerbridge Partners LP and Paulson & Co. closed on a $3.9-billion acquisition of Extended Stay Inc. and its 680 hotel properties. Blackstone staked out another claim in the lodging sector, where it already owns the Hilton Hotel brand thanks to a $26-billion buyout in 2007, by buying $300 million of junior debt on 14 upscale Columbia Sussex hotels.

As a blog by Peter Lattman of the New York Times points out, Blackstone still owns 149 trophy office buildings around the US even after selling off many of the assets it picked up in its $39.2-billion acquisition of Equity Office Properties in ’07. Last month, the WSJ reported that Blackstone was restructuring about $7 billion of the debt remaining from the EOP deal, as it had cut about $4 billion from its Hilton debt earlier this year.

According to the WSJ, the maturity of the EOP debt will be extended to 2014 from 2012. In return, Blackstone will pay down the $7-billion debt by 10% and the interest rate on the remaining debt will increase by one percentage point. Overseas, Blackstone Group’s Europe hotels owner secured about $197 million of mezzanine loans earlier this month from leveraged loan funds, thus reducing the amount it owes to senior bank lenders, according to Bloomberg.

Another measure of Blackstone’s renewed bullishness in commercial real estate may be seen in the sector’s impact on its earnings profile then and now. In March of last year, Blackstone reported that its real estate holdings lost $477.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2008 and $718 million for ’08 as a whole, contributing more than half of the company’s losses for that year. In October of this year, by contrast, Blackstone said that its real estate segment had third-quarter revenues of $257.8 million and nine-month revenues of $618.4 million.