You had to know this was coming. Steven Lerner, who runs the private equity watchdog part of labor union SEIU, has just issued a statement related to the possibility that KKR or another PE firm (J.C. Flowers, Bain, Hellman & Friedman...) may buy a piece of Lehman Brothers. Here it is: The Lehman Brothers scramble is not the time to allow KKR or other buyout firms to break into banks. And under no circumstances should taxpayers underwrite a marriage between banks and buyout firms. KKR and other buyout firms have made clear their intention to move into banks – and are lobbying hard to tear down important regulatory safeguards. But with their risky debt strategies, exorbitant fees, and poor track record outside their core
2 min read · 12 September 2008
2 min read · 12 September 2008
4 min read · 12 September 2008
Yeah, that headline kind of wrote itself. The Deal is reporting that Change Capital Partners, a UK-based private equity firm focused on the retail sector, has changed ownership. This is a secondary sale of limited partner interests, but is particularly noteworthy because Change only has one outside limited partner on its €300 million debut fund. That would be the Halley family, which was once bosom buddies with Change Capital founder Luc Vandevelde. The Halleys in 2004 asked Vandevelde -- former chairman of UK retailer Marks & Spencer -- to serve as their representative on the board of French retailer Carrefour SA, of which the Halleys were the single largest shareholder. He soon became company chairman, but last year was ousted following a power struggle with the Halleys (reports were that he was seeking PE backers to take Carrefour private). So it's not terribly surprising that the Halleys
1 min read · 12 September 2008
1 min read · 12 September 2008
* Did a Wikipedia poster (sort of) break the news that all of Lehman was for sale? * In a bear market, even the teddies struggle. * “Google killer” Cuil launched earlier this summer to big hype, and over $30 million in VC funding. But TechCrunch has been on the search startup’s case before, and now learns that its VP of product has quit. * Private equity firms keep buying up debt in their own portfolio companies. The latest? KKR and Permira take up around €100 million of ProSiebenSat.1 Media notes. * Martin Hennecke: "We expect a depression in the United States. We expect a depression, very possibly, also in Europe."
1 min read · 12 September 2008
Interesting moment yesterday during Bill O'Reilly's interview of Barak Obama, at least for the peHUB audience. While discussing Obama's alternative energy plans, O'Reilly suggested Obama was “scatter-shotting” the situation. Obama’s response, in part: "The nature of discovery and research and innovation is you put money into a lot of promising pockets -- it’s like venture capital -- and some things are going to work and some things are not." Does the simile hold for you? Video after the jump.
1 min read · 11 September 2008
Cogent Partners has released a new study of the secondary private equity market, and finds that secondary prices for LP interests have dropped in the first half of 2008. That might seem like common sense, but comes after those same prices somehow held near-steady during the second half of 2007. In general, the average bid for all secondaries (as a percentage of NAV) was at 84.7% for the first half of 2008. This mostly mirrors public equity value declines, once leverage is accounted for. You can read the full study here: cogent-partners-pricing-paper-2008.
1 min read · 11 September 2008
2 min read · 10 September 2008
Yesterday I asked PE Week Wire readers to name a neuromodulation startup thathas quietlyraised $45 million in new VC funding. Turns out it was a bit of a trick question, because the regulatory filing I based it on had some incorrect information. The answer – as two readers somehow guessed – is Nevro Corp. a Palo Alto-based company focused on treating patients suffering from chronic back pain (it will later move onto other chronic pain indications). The incorrect piece of info is the $45 million. Company CEO Konstantinos Alataris – a former vice president with Bay City Capital – says that the company actually raised $21.75 million in Series B funding, and will soon file an amended regulatory doc to reflect it. “Just a typo,” explains
1 min read · 10 September 2008
