* Tim Geithner will unveil his toxic asset plan this morning at 8:45am ET, but has already laid out the basics in an Op-Ed for the WSJ. This may be too good a deal to pass up for many private equity firms, but Geithner may need to address the retroactive tax issue in order to seal many deals. Unfortunately, I'm not sure it's in his power to do so. [Update: Get all the details here] * Former Stanford University CIO Eric Upin has left Sequoia Capital, which he joined just last year to launch an asset management platform for college endowments. Ironically, that platform was being pitched as a smaller-scale version of Makena Capital, which is where Upin is now headed. All of this comes just one week after peHUB reported that Michael Beckwith also left Sequoia. He had launching a public equity investment operation (read: hedge fund). By the way, it was Upin who prompted the so-called Graveyard Presentation, by freaking out the other Sequoia partners in a private talk about the economic environment. * Morning Call: U.S. futures rally on toxic buyback plan, European shares rise, the Nikkei hits a 7-week closing high and Hong Kong hits the 5-week mark. * Google Ventures revealed? Did the tech giant tip its hand via a conference name badge? * The SBIR program had been slated to expire last Friday, but has now received a three-month reprieve.
2 min read · 23 March 2009
Boston firm is raising $3.5B for its 11th fund
1 min read · 23 March 2009
2 min read · 20 March 2009
The Connecticut School of Broadcasting has agreed to complete unfinished classes at all of its campuses, just weeks after shutting down because lender PNC Financial seized its assets. This is extremely welcome news. We’ve learned that DLJ Growth Capital Partners will foot the bill. A bit unclear if they’re doing this out of the goodness or their hearts or at the tip of the Connecticut AG’s boot, but it doesn’t much matter. The endgame is that students will get what they paid for (at least the education, if not the ongoing services). Worth noting that this agreement is not a reflection of PNC extending its loan (it didn’t). Classes could begin as early as Monday at some campuses, and info can be found at the revived CSB website. Also, here's a related press release from the Connecticut Attorney General's Office.
1 min read · 20 March 2009
* Congress passes the 90% tax on AIG bonus recipients. Now is the time for private equity to whisper in Congress' ear that it too will take a 90% tax, on calendar 2009 carried interest. Then it can go back to the capital gains rate. Congress gets its pound of flesh, and PE pros get to look like they've been slapped, all the while knowing that there wasn't going to be much carry this year anyway. * Time to reboot venture capital deal structures. * Morning Call: U.S. futures point lower, European shares slip on worries over Fed move, London flat in early trading, the Nikkei dips slightly and Hong Kong finishes down 2.3 percent. * Survey shows that almost half of Americans would opt out of Social Security, if allowed to. Amazingly, this included nearly 33% of respondants over 60 years-old. * The heads of 13 departments at a major Boston hospital agree to donate $350k. The cause? Staving off layoffs. * Madoff's market-making business might have been legit, but that doesn't mean it was profitable.
1 min read · 20 March 2009
The New York Attorney General's office has indicted two former officials of the NY State Common Retirement Fund, for a kickback scheme that involves multiple private equity firms. The accused -- Hank Morris and David Loglisci -- allegedly took kickbacks from investment firms looking for fund commitments from NY Common, which is the nation's third-largest public pension fund with around $122 billion in assets under management. Specifically, the bribes were paid via a Greenwich, Conn.-based "placement firm." It is unclear at this time if the NY AG believes that the investment firms bear any blame, or if they were unwitting pawns (none of the firms or their partners are named as defendants, so it seems like the latter). Among those firms named are The Carlyle Group, Aldus Equity, Ares Management, Falconhead Capital, Levine Leichtman Capital Partners, Lion Capital, Ivy Asset Management, Odyssey Investment Group, Quadrangle Group, Paladin Capital Group, Pequot Private Equity and an affiliate of GKM Newport. You can read the entire indictment after the jump:
1 min read · 19 March 2009
This morning I was on CNBC to talk about distressed debt and the Goldman Sachs reallocation, but my segment was truncated by some news related to Bernie Madoff's bail saga. In fact, we didn't even get to the Goldman stuff (although I tried to, in part because I didn't completely hear something Mark Haines asked -- so figured I should just roll with something else). Anyway, vid is after the jump. And, no, that hairstyle was not intentional...
1 min read · 19 March 2009
A few years back, I created a Word document called "The Walking Dead." These were venture capital firms that were officially in business -- lights on, working websites, cash to support existing investments -- but which no longer had enough cash to add new portfolio companies. Then I made the mistake of mentioning this document to peHUB Wire readers, who began regularly asking me to publish it. This posed some big journalistic dilemmas, because the list was mostly based on hearsay and intuition. Great for my desktop -- bad for the Web. Last week, however, I began the process of verifying the zombie-hood of the aforementioned firms. What I came up with were 14 shops that could legitimately be dumped into the Walking Dead bucket. That only represents around one-third of the firms on my personal list, but it's better to be safe than sorry when it comes to things like this. If you've got an additional firm to nominate -- and can provide some specific details -- my inbox is always open and confidential. And yes, I do expect this to just be Part I of an ongoing series. So, without further ado, here you go...
1 min read · 19 March 2009
1 min read · 19 March 2009
1 min read · 19 March 2009
