Private Equity
Remember the financial meltdown of 2009? The Dow was plummeting and companies were jettisoning jobs like a dog shaking off fleas. Industrials, which includes companies in mining, chemicals, transportation and packaging, recovered faster than most groups. In fact, industrials began outperforming the S&P 500 starting in August 2009 and kept this up until first quarter of this year, according to Bill Peluchiwski, who is co-head of the industrials group at Houlihan Lokey. Yesterday, I spoke to Peluchiwski, who founded Houlihan's industrials group roughly a decade ago. Peluchiwski has recently worked on such deals as the sale of ASIMCO, the Chinese truck components company, to Bain Capital and advised Delphi in its $3.8 billion buyback of a stake held by GM.
4 min read · 24 May 2011
Hunting: eBay, which is selling its Skype stake, is looking to buy. Who Did Wrong? Felix Salmon on the LinkedIn IPO debate. And, shares may fall to $30 when insiders finally sell. Rumors: Amazon is prepping multiple wallet-friendly tablets. And, users download Lady Gaga album for 99 cents and overwhelm Amazon. Easy Shopping: Square is letting customers who frequent business use a card reader to pay with just their names. Tech Help: How to hire a superstar engineer for your startup. New Drugs: J&J plans to introduce pills for AIDS, Hepatitis C, prostrate cancer and stroke that could add $9 Bln in revenue. Dealing: Carlyle invested $7 bln in PE deals last year.
1 min read · 23 May 2011
Departing: Dick Ebersol has resigned from NBC Sports. Video: South Park has fun with Schwarzenegger's sex scandal. Just Say No or Not: Would you take a dream job if there was peer pressure to do drugs? Many would. No Deal: Big Lots, which was up for sale, pulls the auction after not getting high enough bids. No Merci: Former IMF head was indicted today on two criminal sex acts, attempted rape and sexual abuse. And, DSK's bail was set at $1 million. Preposterous: What Jim Cramer thinks about the LinkedIn IPO, from Dealbreaker. And, LinkedIn's bankers underestimated the hype. More Popular: Amazon.com now sells more Kindle books than print books. Women 2.0: The false choice between babies and startups. Just for Fun: Friskies introduces an iPad game for your cat.
1 min read · 19 May 2011
Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool. Now that LinkedIn has gone public at a rousing $45 a share, our thoughts turn to other eligible contenders. Groupon, the daily deals site, has been talking to investment bankers. The company is expected to pick Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley for its IPO, according to Thomson Reuters. Groupon's IPO could raise as much as $1 billion while LinkedIn raised a measly $352.8 million (but LinkedIn will have a $4.3 billion market cap).
1 min read · 19 May 2011
Deal: Thermo Fisher is the lead bidder to buy Phadia AB, an allergy-testing company. It could go for $3 bln. Apple: Launch of new MacBook Air to come in June or July. FB: How to party your way into a Facebook job (have the right father and be super rich before hand). And, all the people that made FB successful but didn't actually work there. Vote of Confidence: Vikram Pandit, Citigroup's CEO, gets incentive award of at least $16.7 mln. Brutal Honesty: One enterpreneur says "I have no idea what I'm doing." Advice for Maria Shriver: Think Jackie Kennedy, not Elizabeth Edwards and move into a nice house. Court Hearing: Bail hearing for IMF's Dominique Strauss-Kahn set for Thursday. Rappin' in Defense of Wall Street: Leeman Brothaz put out video calling for individual responsibility for financial crisis. So don't put it all on poor widdle Wall Street, yo.
1 min read · 18 May 2011
What happened to the first Apprentice winner? Bill Rancic talks about what makes an entrepreneur successful. Skype Aftermath: Guess who was a big proponent of MSFT's $8.5 bln buy of Skype? Big IPO: Ally, the former GM finance unit, will trade on the NYSE and the IPO could finally come in July. Earnings: Dell's Q1 comes in ahead of expectations. Taking HP: Paulson & Co., the $36 bln hedge fund, is taking a stake in Hewlett-Packard. Hackers with that Latte: Think twice before you use your Smartphone at Starbucks. No Merci: The IMF won't be providing accused rapist Dominique Strauss-Kahn, with diplomatic immunity. Strauss-Kahn has also been placed on suicide watch in his Rikers prison cell. And, Felix Salmon talks about who could succeed him as head of the IMF. It's a hit: Health professionals and organizations want McDonalds to stop marketing junk foods to kids and to retire Ronald McDonald.
1 min read · 17 May 2011
The End or Not? The Winklevoss twins have lost their bid to get 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to reopen their Facebook case. Denied: No bail for IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn who allegedly sexually assaulted a chamber maid in a Manhattan hotel. The IMF says it didn't pay for Kahn's hotel bill. He was there on "private business." And, Kahn is going to Rikers. Giving In: RIM has decided to offer tools for managing and ensuring the security of Blackberry rivals. Taking Control: Rahm Emanuel is sworn in as da mayor of Chicago. No Deal: The Nasdaq and ICE withdraw their $11.3 bln hostile bid for NYSE Euronext. Going Under: Greece is top candidate for default, Bill Gross says. Staying with Meatloaf: Donald Trump will not be going after President Obama's job. A Slice: Nelson Peltz's Trian Group now owns 9.7% of Domino's Pizza.
1 min read · 16 May 2011
Last week, W. Townsend Ziebold jumped to First Beverage Group, a boutique financial services firm catering to the beverage industry. He joined First Beverage from Bruce Wasserstein’s PE firm, Wasserstein & Co. Townsend has over 25 years in investment banking and private equity. He’s been a banker with First Boston Corp. and Wasserstein Perella, which was acquired by Dresdner Bank in 2000 (The merchant bank of WP was spun off in 2000 to form Wasserstein & Co.). Townsend has worked on some major deals, including KKR’s purchase of RJR Nabisco and SmithKline's merger with the Beecham Group. At Wasserstein & Co., he worked on the buys of IMAX Corp., Maybelline Cosmetics and Turtle Mountain, a leading producer of non-dairy desserts. Townsend, 49, officially joined First Beverage on May 9. I spoke to him by phone last week.
4 min read · 16 May 2011
Painstaking and Meticulous: How Bin Laden emailed all these years without getting detected by the U.S. And, OBL was apparently a micro-manager. You're Hired: Bryce Lee, head of tech banking at Credit Suisse, has joined Silver Lake for a clean-tech fund. Tomayto, Tomahto: Facebook admits hiring PR firm to pitch stories about Google's privacy practices but says it wasn't a smear campaign. Chrome Wars: Sergey Brin says Microsoft Windows is "really torturing users." Puppet Regime: Guess who's on Twitter? The Taliban and they aren't funny. Sweet Parting: AT&T has promised to give T-Mobile $6 bln in assets, services and cash if regulators reject their merger. Scammed: Warning to those who shop at Michael's. Thieves have tampered with stores credit card processing equipment. Going Buggy: Wifi connection issues affecting the iPad have returned and have spread to the iPhone and iPod touch. Horror Mom: Watch this pageant mother justify giving her 8-year-old daughter Botox.
1 min read · 12 May 2011
OBL: Senator, who saw the pics, confirms that Bin Laden's dead. Popcorn With That: Felix Salmon reviews "Too Big to Fail." In China: Goldman launches a Yuan denominated PE fund. And, China tells banks to set aside more cash to cool inflation. Earnings: Remember Apollo's lackluster IPO? Well their Q1 earnings are up. Most Hated: More than half of traders and investors surveyed dislike Goldman but that won't stop this IB from winning clients. Caught: Facebook busted in clumsy smear campaign on Google. Breakdown: Saab's rescue has fallen through. Apple: Why publishers are finally saying yes to Steve Jobs's company. Deal: Takeda in talks to buy Nycomed for $14 billion.
1 min read · 12 May 2011
