Private Equity
2 min read · 30 October 2008
Lately, I’ve been getting ambushed by emails from LinkedIn’s PE/VC Group. Upon further examination, I see that the group’s message board is a solicitation free-for-all not unlike my email spam folder. Why would anyone bare their deal-doing deeds on a public forum? Here's an example. Today I received a compelling deal flow opportunity from a Kazakhstani energy company: Any stratigic investors (Energy Holding or PE energy fund) is interested in Electric Transmission Company in Kazakhstan? Asked by Arman Seisebayev, Independent Director at REIT "Great Wall" (KASE: VSTN) Tough to take seriously. But alas, I have found evidence of an actual deal being done! From a firm I’ve actually heard of! Yesterday, Jason Pike of Eos Partners revealed he is on the hunt for Retail, Consumer
2 min read · 30 October 2008
3 min read · 30 October 2008
Not That Funny: Bad jokes at Fortress Investment Group's investor meeting. "(CEO Wesley Evans) joked that if Fortress stock fell much further, to $1, he would institute a hostile takeover of his own company." Is this a picture of what Apollo and KKR conference calls would look like if they ever make it public? The Labor Movement: An old but good interview with Andy Stern of the SEIU on taking "normal and also some aggressive corporate accountability campaigns." Gone: The way of Linens ‘N Things, Mervyns will be no more. Safe Bets: Don't even bother applying for a finance job these days, but when's the last time the IRS downsized?
1 min read · 30 October 2008
FAIL: Why you should not friend your boss on Facebook. The Real Reason GM and Chrysler Want To Merge: CFO.com spells it out. It’s money. “In August Cerberus claimed that Chrysler still had $11 billion in cash from loans raised earlier. There is speculation that it might be willing to throw that in, and add some more, in exchange for a stake in the merged entity.” Hard To Believe: Rupert Murdoch did not know there was more to Dow Jones than The Wall Street Journal when he went to buy it. Felix Salmon quotes Michael Wolff at a media conference saying: I don't believe he had any idea there was an enterprise side of the business. I believe I was the one to explain Factiva to him. He wanted the newspaper. The fact that after he bought the newspaper he found himself with these rather successful businesses was I think surprising to him. I think he was pleased. Boo: Wall Street Crisis-themed Halloween Costumes.
2 min read · 28 October 2008
2 min read · 28 October 2008
2 min read · 28 October 2008
Joe Nocera: Pointing out the dirty little secret of the banking industry. Hint-it has to do with bailout money. A Guide: A new Dealbreaker lesson on how to endure the inevitable implosion of your hedge fund. The first edition: keep up appearances. Speaking of Guides: Jack Flack, the PR pro, writes six steps for becoming a corporate villain. Best one is "Say one thing; ooze another." 20/20 Retrospect: Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda. Companies like Yahoo, Take-Two, and Diebold should've taken their buyout offers when they got 'em because their rebuffs may well have cost them half of their value. If any PE firms have the capacity and desire to go hostile, this may well be a convincing argument. WSJ reports.
2 min read · 27 October 2008
Carl Thoma has been in the private equity industry for 27 years, weathering the Drexel Burnham blow-up of the late 1980s and the tech and telecom meltdown of the early 2000s. As reported last week, Thoma Bravo's new fund is nearing its final close after lowering its initial target by nearly half. The $800 million pool of capital will be Carl Thoma's ninth buyout vehicle since getting his start under the name Golder Thoma in 1980. After the jump, a Q&A with him on everything from lending terms to Lent, from evaluations to "ego and greed."
5 min read · 27 October 2008
One Columnist Responds to Andrew Lahde: John Gapper of the FT says, In personality terms, however, you display all the unpleasant characteristics of a class of people who got lucky over the past decade on cheap credit.... Santa Monica, the Californian city where you live and used to work, has a pier jutting out into the Pacific Ocean. Why don't you go out and jump off it? Michael Lewis: In which a hedge fund manager tries to short himself. When?: The predicted timeline for the end of this thing just keeps getting longer and longer. Today Marty Lipton suggests three to five years, while Joseph Rice of CD&R optimistically predicted that buyouts will stick around and leverage will come back. Another Nail In The Coffin: Abnormal Returns writes that hedge funds can't even be considered a proper asset class: "Hedge funds are an aggregation of all manner of investment strategies. Trying to mold a coherent case for them as an asset class is difficult at best."
2 min read · 24 October 2008
