As we wait for today's FDIC vote on rules governing PE investments in banks, here are a few more thoughts I shared yesterday with Reuters Insider. You can see the prior video here, and read some of Alastair's thoughts here.
1 min read · 26 August 2009
A quick video segment with Reuters Insider, about the new breed of VC-backed companies app developers. Get it after the jump.
1 min read · 25 August 2009
Eric Leathers has left Capital Z Partners to join Pine Brook Road Partners, peHUB has learned. The move comes several months after Pine Brook raised $1.4 billion for its debut fund, which will focus on private equity investments in the energy and financial services sectors. Leathers originally joined Capital Z more than 10 years ago, after having spent time as an investment banking associate with DLJ. He served as one of the firm's two partners -- it also has two managing partners -- and had served on the boards of portfolio companies like Universal American Financial Corp. (health insurance) and SBJ Group Ltd. (UK-based corporate insurer).
1 min read · 25 August 2009
The FDIC will vote tomorrow afternoon on new rules governing private equity investment in banks. No one yet knows exactly what they'll be voting on, except that they'll be more lenient than an initial draft and more rigorous than current regulation. Here are some thoughts, from a Reuters Insider piece I taped earlier today:
1 min read · 25 August 2009
1 min read · 25 August 2009
And then there was one... Earlier this month, the Tennessee Consolidated Retirement System made its first-ever dip into private equity waters, committing a total of $150 million to funds managed by Hellman & Friedman, Khosla Ventures and TA Associates. The moves came approximately one year after the Tennessee legislature voted to approve alternative asset commitments, making Tennessee the 49th state with such flexibility. The lone holdout is Georgia, which doesn't make alternative investments out of either its public employees' pension system (ERSGA) or its State Treasury. I know that it's a "red" state, but this seems to be taking conservatism a bit too seriously.
2 min read · 24 August 2009
A bunch of thoughts with in particular order, for the 183 of you actually working today... *** The prospects for KKR portfolio company IPOs are not related to KKR’s inability to price its own IPO. Apples and oranges. A more legitimate question, however, is if a rush of PE-backed IPOs would be welcomed or viewed as too much too fast (the “glut” scenario)… *** Was on the phone last week with a fund-of-funds partner who is in a bunch of brand-name buyout funds. I asked about Q2 marks, and if portfolio valuations had jumped in line with the public markets. After all, mark-to-market should cut both ways. What he said, however, was that most of his GPs had only written their portfolios up modestly in the quarter. Five or six percent, compared to the DJIA increase of nearly 9 percent. Not sure if this reflects conservative accounting or was a byproduct of this LP’s particular portfolio…
2 min read · 24 August 2009
Despite what you might have read in the New York Times, the FDIC is not going to make is easier for PE firms to invest in banks. Instead, the agency is simply softening its original proposal, which was fairly draconian:
1 min read · 21 August 2009
SVB Capital, the fund-of-funds unit of Silicon Valley Bank, last week laid off seven employees, including five investment professionals. Firm spokeswoman Carrie Merritt said, in part: “It was a case of prioritization. For example, we’re looking at a broad global program that has taken on more of an Asia-centric focus, so we had some people in London who didn’t make as much sense to have, in terms of appropriate staffing… We also were looking to centralize some things like research with the larger SVB organization, so we basically tightened up some of those.”
1 min read · 21 August 2009
Did you read your New York Times yet this morning? If so, you might have seen a B1 story about next week’s FDIC vote on rules governing private equity investment in banks. It begins: “Faced with a growing wave of bank failures, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is taking extraordinary steps to attract buyers for troubled institutions to keep the fund that makes depositors whole from being drained. Federal regulators are planning next week to make it easier for private equity firms to buy insolvent lenders, according to people briefed on the situation, a move that would reduce the number of failed banks that the fund would have to support…” Wow. The FDIC must have done a massive turnaround. Last I checked, it had proposed all sorts of rules to make it tougher for PE firms to invest in banks. Now it’s apparently scrapped all that, and thrown in a few tasty carrots for good measure… But there’s one giant caveat: The NY Times reporter doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about (neither, apparently, do his editors).
2 min read · 21 August 2009
