Private Equity
More than 800 peHUB readers have bought tickets to our upcoming shindigs in Boston (3/31) and San Francisco (4/14). Be sure to join us, by getting yours today: Boston: http://bostonshindig.eventbrite.com San Francisco: http://sfshindig.eventbrite.com Tickets cost just $10, with proceeds going to a local charity to be voted on by event attendees (nominate one upon purchase). We look forward to seeing you there...
1 min read · 22 March 2010
Atomico Ventures, a European VC fund run by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström, today announced that it has closed its second fund -- and first institutional one -- with $165 million in capital commitments. So we spent some time on the phone this morning with Zennström, in order to learn more about the fundraise and the state of European venture capital. Last May, Atomico said in an SEC filing that it was looking to raise up to $266 million. Why did you close on so much less? I wouldn't say we closed on much less. The thing our lawyers told was was that we needed to set a limit in the SEC filing, because if we went above it we'd have to do another filing. So we basically put a high number with a really big buffer. The reality is that, with the kind of investments we’re looking at, you don’t want to have too big of a fund.
3 min read · 22 March 2010
Compass Advisers today will announce the return of Scott Marden, a longtime media banker and executive who has spent the past four years overseeing information and media private equity for DLJ Merchant Banking Partners. He will be in charge of a new principal investment effort that will try raising a $600 million fund focused on middle-market opportunities in the business and information services space. Marden was part of Compass in 1999, when it raised over $900 million for a private equity fund focused on Europe. He left two years later to become president of McGraw Hill's media and information group (BusinessWeek, etc.), before moving onto DLJ MB.
2 min read · 22 March 2010
Yale University's investment office yesterday disclosed that it had voted last June to increase its target private equity allocation from 21% to 26 percent. This came amid mounting private equity losses, but was portrayed by many media outlets as "contrarian" investment chief David Swensen sticking to his guns. In reality, however, Swensen didn't have much of a choice. As of last June, Yale's actual exposure to private equity was at 24.3 percent. That's a major climb from 20.2% the prior year, and nearly 10 percentage points higher than Yale's private equity allocation just four years earlier. In other words, raising the target allocation was largely an effort to reflect reality. "But wait," says rhetorical reader. "Why is Swensen raising the target even above current exposures, other than because he really believes in the asset class?" Well, I'm glad you asked.
2 min read · 19 March 2010
2 min read · 19 March 2010
We’ve got 500 readers playing in our annual March Madness contest, and have a sole leader after the first day of play: Jeff Edwards, an analyst with Pantheon Ventures. Jeff correctly picked 15 of yesterday's 16 games, whiffing only on Georgetown vs. Ohio University. Unfortunately, Jeff has Georgetown going all the way to the Final Four, so he's basically blown his chance of winning the pool. At least he gets a few hours of early bragging rights... Also, congrats to the five players who correctly picked 14 games yesterday: Bob Aspell (Sverica International), Mike Duda (Deutsche Inc.), Greg Wappett (Provident Healthcare Partners), David Santoni (Prestwick Partners) and someone named JMP1782.
1 min read · 19 March 2010
Last month, I wrote about how venture capitalist Giri Sekhar had been indicted for trying to blackmail a New York public pension official. The alleged story is that Sekhar threatened to disclose an extra-marital affair, unless the official helped secure a $25 million LP commitment to a new fund being raised by Sekhar’s fund. Sekhar’s case hasn’t progressed much since then, with the only available paperwork being the original three-page indictment. A rep from the Albany County DA’s office would only say that the case is “ongoing,” while Sekhar didn’t reply to email requests for comment. But I was curious as to what all this scumdrudgery means for FA Technology Ventures, the firm at which Sekhar had been a partner (he officially left in late December, just as the fan began to stink). A firm spokesman declined to comment, so let’s move onto anonymous sourcing:
3 min read · 19 March 2010
When Google bought YouTube in 2006 for $1.65 billion, we knew that the video sharing site's investors had hit a home run. Now we know exactly how far it went, thanks to documents released today as part of Viacom's copyright infringment suit against Google. Sequoia Capital invested a total of $9 million over two funding rounds in 2005 and 2006, and ultimately received $516 million worth of Google stock. This is higher than prior reports of a $442 million payout. If Sequoia held onto its shares, they would now be worth an additional $68 million. Artis Capital, a hedge fund with ties to Sequoia, invested around $3 million in YouTube's Series B round and received $85 million in Google stock. It would be worth another $11 million or so on today's market.
1 min read · 18 March 2010
When Financial Engines shot up 44% Tuesday in its first day of trading, media reports termed it a "home run" and lauded the "best IPO performance in months." In response, Benchmark Capital’s Bill Gurley wondered via Twitter if a better characterization would have been that the Financial Engines IPO was “poorly executed/priced.” Leaving aside the fact that Gurley portfolio company OpenTable jumped nearly 60% on its first day of trading, the comment reminded me that we still don’t have a near-perfect way of judging IPO success.
1 min read · 18 March 2010
UPDATE: False alarm here. Cuomo's announcement dealt with an investigation into "the manipulation of salary and overtime payments that leads to inflated pensions at the expense of taxpayers." No relation to the pay-to-play situation, save for it involving the state pension system. Andrew Cuomo's office just announced that he will hold a press conference at 12:30pm this afternoon, to discuss an "expansion" of the ongoing New York state pension scandal. That doesn't sound like a Rattner deal or Hank Morris plea (particularly given this being filed yesterday), but perhaps new info and indictments. Unclear if this specifically relates to pay-to-play or not. My guess -- and it's only that -- is that the name Alan Hevesi could come up more than in passing. After all, when former NY chief investment officer David Logisci recently plead guilty, he said that he was instructed to deal with Morris by his superiors. Moreover, Cuomo said that Loglisci didn't
1 min read · 18 March 2010
