Private Equity
2 min read · 05 October 2009
3 min read · 05 October 2009
2 min read · 05 October 2009
Two sources confirmed to peHUB today that Cogent Partners has been hired by Stanford’s endowment to sell some portion of its private equity portfolio. Beyond that, there are still lots of questions about exactly what Stanford hopes to get out of the deal. The news was first reported by LBO Wire. A managing director for Cogent declined to comment. One interested purchaser with around $1 billion under management told me he contacted Cogent and was told the deal was “so big I shouldn’t even bother thinking about it.” That investor, who has purchased assets from Cogent before, said Cogent was tight-lipped about the particulars of the assets and got the impression that Cogent had a list of very large investors it was already pitching the deal to. Another source with billions under management and who is familiar with the proposed sale said the deal is different than a traditional secondary sale because Stanford wants to work out some kind of “joint venture” arrangement in which it will continue to hold a stake in its private equity assets. For example, if it has a commitment that is 50% called down, it would rather sell 25% instead of the full 50%, the source says.
2 min read · 30 September 2009
3 min read · 30 September 2009
Marcellus Taylor buys Chicago's United Investment Managers
1 min read · 28 September 2009
It may have delivered a jolt to the IPO market, but battery maker A123 Systems didn’t produce a high-voltage charge for its venture backers. A123 priced its shares at $13.50 this morning and they shot up to $20.29 by the end of the day, an increase of more than 50 percent. That was the best second-best debut of the seven VC-backed companies that have gone public this year and the second-best debut for any IPO on a U.S. exchange this year. (Updated: OpenTable rose 59% on its first day.) Despite the impressive performance, the company’s backers didn’t see a huge return because they invested such a large amount in A123. (See table below) Prior to its IPO, A123 raised more than $240 million from more than 15 investors over 11 rounds since 2001, according to Thomson Reuters (publisher of peHUB).
2 min read · 25 September 2009
Google CEO Eric Schmidt told Reuters today that the worst of the recession is behind the company and he expects to start doing about one acquisition a month. “Acquisitions are turned on again at Google and we are doing our normal maneuvers, which is small companies,” Schmidt told Reuters Television at the G20 summit. That may be good news for VC-backed startups, which haven’t felt any love from Google since 2006, when it bought three VC-backed companies, including YouTube.
2 min read · 24 September 2009
55,000 and Counting...
5 min read · 24 September 2009
55,000 and Counting...
5 min read · 24 September 2009
