Private Equity
2 min read · 21 July 2011
(Reuters) - Shares of real estate site Zillow Inc. skyrocketed in their market debut on Wednesday, the latest to ride a wave of dot-com exuberance while stoking fears of lofty Internet valuations. The 6-year-old, loss-making real estate website, which recorded $30.5 million in revenue last year from providing housing value appraisals online, soared to as much as $60 -- a three-fold increase from its IPO price of $20. Investors shrugged off the company's dependence on an uncertain advertising and housing market. Zillow's initial pop in value bested social media player LinkedIn, which doubled in value in its first day of trade in May. "The mere fact that LinkedIn and HomeAway did so very well only helped , and put even more euphoria into
3 min read · 21 July 2011
3 min read · 21 July 2011
(Reuters) - Real-estate investments propelled Blackstone Group LP (BX.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) to strong profits in the second quarter, but the giant private equity firm warned that deals in general were becoming expensive. Private equity firms have seen the value of their portfolios recover as stock markets have risen, and Blackstone said the improvement in valuation and increased fee income boosted earnings. "The star performer in the quarter was real estate," Blackstone's President Tony James told reporters on a conference call. "Purchasing assets from distressed sellers has been the dominant focus of our real estate activities over the last year."
3 min read · 21 July 2011
2 min read · 20 July 2011
4 min read · 20 July 2011
1 min read · 20 July 2011
(Reuters) - Twitter Chief Executive Dick Costolo called secondary markets a distraction and expects private companies will increasingly enact policies to restrict the trading of its shares on those unregulated exchanges. Microblogging service Twitter, along with fellow red-hot social media companies Zynga and Facebook, have already had to put in place "lots of policies to constrain that," Costolo told the audience at a Fortune conference in Aspen, Colo. In December, an investment led by venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins valued the company at $4 billion. Since then, an $80 million investment by Andreessen Horowitz in February on the private markets valued Twitter at $4 billion, and recent transactions have accorded the company a price tag of as much as
2 min read · 20 July 2011
2 min read · 19 July 2011
2 min read · 19 July 2011
