Like only a Hall of Fame quarterback could do, Steve Young pumped up the audience at our PartnerConnect West conference earlier this month. Here's the video of the QB-turned-private equity pro.
1 min read · 24 October 2014
A little more than 200 of you took our latest poll, which asked: “Is the pace of VC investing (on track for $40B this year) proof of another bubble?” Early on, most folks said no. But the final results show most people think we are in another bubble.
1 min read · 24 October 2014
Trending in private equity news this week: Bids for Francisco's eFront top $400 million, Falfurrias puts Dorsey Wright on the block, and CD&R hires ex-GE Healthcare CEO as operating advisor.
1 min read · 24 October 2014
Hamilton “Tony” James, president and COO of The Blackstone Group, said he was not surprised that a recent dog abuse case spurred a national outcry against a private equity firm and its portfolio company. “Animal rights people are some of the most aggressive” of activist groups, James said on the sidelines of the PartnerConnect LP-GP Summit in New York, sponsored by peHUB and Thomson Reuters. James, who spoke during a keynote Thursday, said his prior firm, DLJ Merchant Banking, once owned Charles River Laboratories, which breeds animals for pharmaceutical testing. “We got bomb threats all the time,” James told peHUB. Social media recently has publicized bad acts committed by members of the PE industry. In August, Centerplate Inc CEO Desmond Hague was caught on a hotel video abusing a cowering dog. The video went viral and the ensuing backlash included calls for Hague to be fired, threatened boycotts of Centerplate, and death threats against the CEO and executives of Centerplate’s sponsor, Olympus Partners. Hague resigned on Sept. 2. SeaWorld Entertainment, a Blackstone portfolio company, also saw its stock plunge in August. “Blackfish,” a documentary released in 2013 that highlights SeaWorld’s treatment of killer whales, has spurred a backlash against the company that has affected the company’s earnings. When asked if Centerplate waited too long to oust Hague, James said he wasn’t that familiar with the situation. “What kind of person beats their dog?” he said. “I’m not that sympathetic either.” James didn’t comment on the Blackfish controversy. Instead, he recalled how SeaWorld penguins visited the Blackstone offices when the portfolio company went public in 2013. Publicity from the visit, which included cuddly photos of SeaWorld penguins running around the firm’s offices, softened Blackstone’s image, James said. “It made us look friendly… can be very useful tool for getting stuff out as well.” James, during his keynote, said the world had changed in the last seven to eight years “when we all went public.” The PE industry used to be private and “didn’t get a lot of attention.” Blackstone executives are now “very mindful” that they are “public figures,” he said. “We get watched…Private birthday parties become causes célèbres. We try to be careful. We make mistakes.” By Luisa Beltran, peHUB This story first appeared on peHUB on Sept. 19, 2014: https://admin.pehub.com/2014/09/blackstones-james-we-are-public-figures/
1 min read · 22 October 2014
Josh Lerner of Harvard Business School, delivers a keynote address entitled "The Best of Times or the Worst of Times? PE at a Crossroads" at the LP-GP Summit on Sept. 18, 2014. Lerner is the Jacob H. Schiff Professor of Investment Banking Unit Head at HBS.
1 min read · 22 October 2014
Venture capitalist Jim Breyer, best known for leading Accel Partners's early investment in Facebook, said it has become much more difficult to recruit talent in Silicon Valley because of competition from large Chinese Internet companies.
2 min read · 22 October 2014
Trending in private equity this week: the mushrooming market for secondaries, Culpeper Capital, Vista Equity, Blackstone, jobs of the week, more.
1 min read · 17 October 2014
For the first three quarters of this year more than $33 billion has been put to work in U.S.-based companies. That is $3 billion more than the amount invested in all of 2013, according to the MoneyTree Report from the NVCA and PricewaterhouseCoopers, based on data from Thomson Reuters.
2 min read · 17 October 2014
Allstate Investments,which manages investments on behalf of the insurance giant, plans to expand its alternatives portfolio over the next several years in part by building its investment team to execute more co-investments, Senior Managing Director Russell Mayerfeld told Buyouts.
2 min read · 15 October 2014
Trending in private equity this week: Thomson Reuters sells peHUB, Buyouts and VCJ to UCG, First Reserve falls short of fundraising target, Madison Dearborn aims for $4 billion with seventh fund.
1 min read · 10 October 2014
