Has Stephen Schwarzman spoiled the party for everyone? We'll see. The celebrity chief of leveraged buyout giant Blackstone Group LP uncorked the bubbly with an initial public offering that was a singular event in wealth creation for private equity. The flamboyant multi-billionaire, one of the industry's most influential alpha males, might have known better than to flaunt an ostentatious lifestyle and stir up publicity while ostensibly in an IPO quiet period. Legislators have now trained their eyes on a once-obscure facet of private equity — tax breaks — which PE and hedge fund investors may end up losing.

Blame Schwarzman for blowing the lid. And blame Blackstone for lifting the veil on private equity in all its glory, or folly, as the case may be. We now know how much Blackstone's masters of the universe make at the firm (a lot) and what kind of stone crabs Schwarzman indulges in for lunch (the $400 kind). But while the scale of their riches may be difficult to surpass, there's no reason why they should be singled out in an industry that's been one of the biggest, well-oiled profit centers for investors in recent years.

If anything, Schwarzman is a product of what Henry Kravis, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. co-founder and hardly a pauper himself, dubs "private equity's golden era." Thanks to leverage with a capital L, that seemingly inexhaustible supply of cheap credit to finance buyouts, profits from realizations have flowed into countless pockets: CEOs, sponsors, lenders, bankers, advisers, limited partners and, one could argue, teachers and other state employees.

Profits are what it's all about. Which brings us to our annual Private Equity Deals of the Year. As with previous selections, our standard quest for the best return multiples on exits remains the overarching goal. There were admittedly plenty of those in the past 12 months. But we try to balance that with an attempt to shed light on the various elements that make some deals wildly successful. This year's choices mirror the changing buyout landscape, though not to the exclusion of the more traditional block-and-tackle stratagems that persist even in today's debt-hungry dealmaking.

This has been one of the giddiest sellers' markets in recent memory, and what better sign of the times than Blackstone's IPO? It wasn't exactly unprecedented. Last year, KKR listed a $5 billion fund in Amsterdam, an event that was also preceded by Ripplewood Holdings LLC's float of RHJ International SA in Brussels. Earlier this year, Fortress Investment Group LLC, a New York private equity and hedge fund manager, pulled off a U.S. listing successfully, followed by a unique private market offering by Los Angeles-based Oaktree Capital Management LLC. But Blackstone raised the bar on private-to-public capital raising, and did it with perfect timing and great panache.

Buoyant stock markets also boosted results for other realizations. Energy was prominently represented by Petroplus Holdings AG, whose listing in Switzerland yielded an exceptional return for sponsors Carlyle Group and Riverstone Holdings LLC. In manufacturing, Genstar Capital LLC came up with a gem in Altra Holdings Inc.'s IPO.

Indian outsourcing company WNS (Holdings) Ltd., backed by Warburg Pincus, showed what patience and prescience could do when combined with growth capital. Similarly, proxy adviser Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. rode the corporate governance wave for a dominant role globally. Stellex Aerostructures Inc. correctly predicted a cyclical upturn.

Retail, prone to cyclicality, has seen some hits and misses in the past, but catering to the rich proved a profitable niche for upscale apparel maker Hanna Andersson Corp.. Ditto for upscale magazine publisher Modern Luxury Media. Gains galore were also made from the lowly business of bedding retail.

If there's any lingering doubt that financial engineering continues to facilitate enormous profit taking for the industry, consider Avista Capital Partners' dividends from cable operator WideOpenWest Holdings LLC, a deal that stood out for its lofty debt multiples at the outset and the hefty gains the sponsors made in just a little over a year.

But investors may well be advised not to ignore the early signs of market fatigue turning up in large LBO financings. Schwarzman may have put a damper on the party, but there's nothing like a liquidity crisis to sober everyone up quickly.