Erin Griffith

Inside One Very Private Equity Firm

peHUB Second Opinion 3.10

Fake it to make it: The Economist on counterfeits. (Economist) Women Still Missing from Top Jobs: A new gender gap report from the World Economic Forum finds women making progress in the workplace, but there remain too few in the boardroom and C-suite. (BusinessWeek) Tough Times for Porn: The lender which backed a $14 million acquisition of the domain name www.Sex.com (a URL that is, to my dismay, very near, keyboard-wise, to the website of the SEC) is being foreclosed upon. It's for sale. (Reuters) Speaking of Porn: CNBC has a special on the difficulties of retirement in the porn industry. Because they don't have 401Ks. Someone should tell CNBC that there are a lot of industries with no 401k plans. The difference here I guess is that one's application for an office job is generally not enhanced by an Adult Entertainment resume... (CNBC)

Quote of the Day

I'm at the DBR Restructuring and Turnaround Summit in New York. When a question arose as to the sustainability of private equity's "amend and extend" strategy (a technique used in the last year to avoid loan maturities on highly levered companies) arose, Michael E. Tennenbaum of distressed debt investment firm Tennenbaum Capital Partners had this to say: "The longer you kick the can down the road, the dirtier it gets."

Mid-Week M&A Madness

Here are some potential target ideas, rumored or official, to jumpstart your deal pipeline. Our sources are various news reports and the Buyouts “Seeking Buyers” list. Carlyle Group hired Goldman Sachs to explore exit options for Arinc Inc., a defense and aviation company, Bloomberg reported. Card Factory, a UK greeting card company, is for sale and has garnered bids from Permira, Cinven and Summit Partners. (Reuters) Marsh & McLennan Cos Inc is selling its security consulting business, Kroll, $1.3 billion, according to the FT. (Reuters) Forsys Metals Corp, which was looking for strategic options, said it has completed its review and invited a select group of interested parties to submit proposals on funding of its key uranium project. (Reuters)

Wynnchurch Capital Holds First Close

FBAR Panic Was All A False Alarm

Limited partners and individual investors in private equity funds and hedge funds may remember last year's FBAR scare: IRS officials created confusion as to whether investors in offshore private equity and hedge funds would have to file a Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) for tax purposes. Last week the Treasury backed away from those statements, allowing investors to breathe a sigh of relief. I spoke with Seth Entin, a tax lawyer at Greenberg Traurig, on the topic. peHUB: So what exactly is FBAR? Entin: It's a one or two page disclosure form administered by the IRS. It's used to disclose if you have an ownership in an offshore financial account. It's designed not just for tax purposes but also to detect money laundering and other crimes as well. Before the IRS said everyone needed to file one, how was it used? People used to invest in foreign hedge and PE funds and didn't think they had to file these. So most people who invested in foreign funds never filed it. Then a few statements were made by IRS officials that said if a US investor owns an interest in a foreign PE or hedge fund, you have to put it on an FBAR, not only for this year, but for all prior years.

peHUB Second Opinion 3.9

I'm back from endless jury duty. Tell me what I missed. Zombies: WSJ weighs in on the VC Shakeout. (WSJ) There's also this piece in which the Journal's venture data arm sizes up "promising young companies," which seems redundant because, isn't that the whole point of a venture firm? I dunno. (WSJ) Second Suit: Goldman Sachs Group was sued by a large union pension fund that accused the Wall Street investment bank of overpaying its executives. It's the second pension fund to do so. (Reuters) Speaking of Lawsuits: Lindsay Lohan is ridiculously suing E-Trade for an ad which refers to a baby named Lindsay as a "milkaholic." She's seeking $100 million, claiming she, like Madonna, Cher, and Beyonce, has "first name recognition." (NY Post) Blockbuster is seeking a buyer. You must read this story for its great scared CEO comment: "Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes told The Post, ‘All your numbers are wrong. They bear no resemblance to any materials we have in the market.'" (NY Post)

peHUB Second Opinion 3.2

Now Hiring: The SEC. In New York the agency plans to increase its staff by 8%. (Reuters) Oliver Stone is Disgusted With Wall Street (the place): Especially anyone who went to work on Wall Street inspired by Bud Fox and Gordon Gekko. Wall Street 2 is another attempt to get the real message of "greed is bad" across. (Dealbreaker) Lists: Four Thoughts on how to get funded by venture capitalists. (Dividends and Preferences) Sykes Vs. Shaq: Penny stock guru Tim Sykes is daring Shaq to take him to court (the legal kind, not the basketball kind). The two have been embroiled in a duel over an apparent pump and dump scheme. (Clusterstock)

February PE Bankruptcies: Is the Worst Over?

In February 2010, just three PE-backed companies filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, a decrease from last year and a stark contrast to the country’s rise in general corporate bankruptcies. By this time last year, 18 LBO-backed companies had filed for bankruptcy. But 2010 is on track to be a happier year for private equity portfolio companies: Combined with January’s total of two filings, buyout firms only received five black eyes to date. The survivors have flexible lenders to thank. Even more surprising is the continued rise in corporate bankruptcies across the board. Data from yesterday shows that bankruptcies rose last month for the fifth straight February. The total number of filings was 6,557, according to AACER, a database of bankruptcy statistics. The fact that private equity had its hands

peHUB Second Opinion 3.2

What's a Hot Job in Private Equity? It should be obvious, but here's why operational partners, finance directors, IR peeps and junior investment managers are hot commodities. (FINS) Your CEO is Probably Lying To You: A new study finds that there are upsides to lying and procrastinating at work. "A lot of portfolio managers have this bias that all CEOs are lying all the time," Carney said. "I'm always trying to get rid of that bias, but it's funny because maybe they're right." (FINS) But We Just Had a Bubble: There's a mini-bubble brewing in the private equity deal market. (Reuters) M&A is Back. "The implicit message of the pickup in merger activity is that both cash and debt are expensive or overvalued and worth using to pay for cheap stock." (Seeking Alpha) Liars Poker 2: Reviews of Michael Lewis' new book, The Big Short. (Felix Salmon) (Salon)