Westview Capital Partners has held a first close on just over $248 million toward its second fund, a source familiar with the situation said. The firm will then hold a final close on $300 million in late Q1. The fund, Westview Capital Partners II LP, has a hard cap of $325 million. If this sounds familiar, it's because I just filed a fundraising story on West Hill Partners. The names are similar, but other than their shared location (Boston), West Hill Partners and Westview Capital Partners are unrelated. Westview came to market just as the fundraising market began to slide in September. Probitas Partners, which declined to comment, is acting as the group's placement agent.
2 min read · 12 January 2009
West Hill Partners continues to work toward a first close on its debut fund, after more than a year of fundraising. Since November of 2007, the firm, formed by alums of PE firm J. W. Childs, has marketed its first effort. The firm hasn’t held a first close to date but expects one this quarter, a source said. Boston-based West Hill seeks to raise $500 million and has engaged Park Hill Group as its placement agent. The effort has experienced the challenges of a first-time fund in a difficult fundraising market but continues to push ahead with the effort, the source said. West Hill was created when Dana Schmaltz, former J.W. Childs President, left the firm in mid-2007.
2 min read · 12 January 2009
Following last week’s interview with secondaries intermediary, Colin McGrady of Cogent Partners, here is the other side of the coin: A Q&A with the buyside. I've spoken with David Tom, a Vox Populi contributor and investment pro at VCFA Group, a buyer of middle market secondary interests in LBO, mezzanine and VC funds. Will Q4 numbers make much of a difference in valuations? I think they will. Not that we’re pricing off of the GP’s valuations, but investment committees and sellers will. So if we’re telling them to take a loss, it’s different than the fund manager telling them to take a loss. It’s true that we don’t care what the GP’s valuation is, but it helps negotiating a deal. Deals can collapse when it gets to the investment committee. Either way, we won’t get Q4 numbers until February or so. Does that give you an incentive to wait to do any deals? From our perspective, we’re still going to do the work, but we’re realistic in it taking longer to close deals.
3 min read · 12 January 2009
PIPE Dreams: Ron Burkle's investment vehicle Yucaipa has taken a stake in Whole Foods, the company Leonard Green recently made a PIPE investment in. (Dealscape) Headcount: Has Google laid off 6,000 and then tried to keep it a secret? (Layoff blog) Drunken Ann Coulter/Olive Oyl Comparisons: What do you get when you cross a music-mixing Microsoft Surface with a sleep-deprived Al Roker? Engadget shows us here. Dealscape asks: Will Maxim keep Steve Rattner from becoming car czar?
1 min read · 09 January 2009
Note: A previous version of this story incorrectly noted the firm had lowered its fundraising target, which remains at its original level. Dominus Capital, the New York firm comprised of former Quad-C professionals, is in the process of holding a first close on its debut fund, according to two sources familiar with the situation. The firm, launched in February of last year, will finalize its first close in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, it hopes to hold a second close on $300 million later this quarter. This is nearing the fund’s $375 million target and $500 million hard cap. For a first-time fund that went to market in July, the close is relatively impressive. Probitas Partners, the firm’s placement agent, declined to comment. Dominus was founded by Gary Binning, alongside Robert D. Haswell and Ashish B. Rughwani of Quad-C. Dan reported that the three had claimed they left the firm to “pursue separate interests” yet in a matter of months, reunited under the Dominus name.
2 min read · 09 January 2009
Latest Example: Riverwood Capital, which last October began raising its debut fund with a $1.25 billion target. Pretty ambitious for a first-timer in today’s market. Or maybe a bit too ambitious. The Palo Alto-based firm, which makes growth equity tech investments, is now telling prospective LPs that $750 million is probably a more realistic fund size, according to a source. Notably, Riverwood Capital wasn’t always Riverwood. The firm formed last year under the name “Bigwood Capital,” with co-founders Michael Marks, the former KKR partner and Flextronics CEO, and Christopher Varelas, the former co-global head of tech media and telecom investment banking for Citigroup. No word on the reason behind the name change.
1 min read · 09 January 2009
Arlington Capital Partners officially launched fundraising on its third buyout fund yesterday, according to a source. As peHUB reported in September, the fund has a $750 million target. Credit Suisse is the firm's placement agent, which is notable since Arlington had used UBS for its prior funds, raising $452 million for its debut and $585 million for the follow-up. Part of that was because of the
1 min read · 09 January 2009
Propagandists: How China's '50 Cent Army' Could Wreck Web 2.0. That is not a reference to the 50 of ‘In da Club' fame. (Datamation) Heidi Asks: Isn't is about time for SWFs to express anger over the horrific performances of their Wall Street investments? ( Deal Journal) Whopper Sacrifice: The latest in a slew of attention-grabbing ad campaigns, Burger King will give you a free Whopper if you "un-friend" 10 of your Facebook friends. Example: "Caroline sacrificed Josh Lowensohn for a free Whopper." (The Social) In Related, But Still Off-Topic News: Price & Prejudice translated to Facebook. (Austenbook) No Surprise: About as ugly as expected: Retail sales fell 2.2% during the holiday season. (Dealbook)
1 min read · 09 January 2009
Harvard, Columbia and University of Virginia don’t get to have all the fun. There’s another type of secondary sellers: Feeder funds. Plenty of the bulge bracket investment banks manage private equity funds-of-funds for their wealthy client investors, and those clients want out of their commitments. JP Morgan is one name rumored to be shopping a number of interests in private equity feeder funds. Lehman Brothers Neuberger Berman, is another. Lehman’s fund management business and its wealth management businesses are actually owned by different entities now—Neuberger manages the feeder funds, but Barclays has the wealth management operation.
2 min read · 09 January 2009
After the interest in our post about Cogent Partners’ secondaries pricing report, I spoke with one of its authors, Cogent managing director Colin McGrady, about some trends he’s seeing in the market. What’s the biggest concern for secondary sellers right now? Institutional investors are really concerned that once the buyout funds start to believe the environment is good to make investments, those capital calls will come fast and furious. It won’t be a normalized capital calls pace. There will be nothing in terms of liquidity, and they’ll have a big wall of capital calls that come. So, naturally, that’s affecting saturation on the secondary market. As people budget for the next fiscal year, nobody is expecting any liquidity. They’re looking at uncalled capital and saying, “We could have a serious problem here.” The easiest way to solve that is the secondary market. But for immature interests in mega-caps, there is no market for those. The big buyers in the secondary market say, “We got our fill of those in ’07 when they were raising them. (The mega-buyout funds) didn’t turn away any capital.”
3 min read · 08 January 2009
