Hello, Berkshire Partners... Is Anybody Home?
Earlier this week, we reported that Berkshire Partners had quietly hired five new associates. The next day, Private Equity Insider wrote the following: Columbia University’s endowment is calling off a secondary-market offering of nearly $1 billion, after selling a sliver of the portfolio to Adams Street Partners. The Adams Street sale involved stakes in just three or four private equity funds run by Berkshire Partners and TA Associates — vehicles whose characteristics were on a “want list” maintained by the Chicago fund-of-funds specialist. I don't use these examples to show how someone else got a better scoop than peHUB (although they did), but rather because the rat-a-tat-tat got me to thinking about how long it had been since I'd heard Berkshire's name mentioned in any context. The Boston-based firm raised $3.1 billion for its seventh fund in 2006, but hasn't announced any new acquisitions since October 2007 (save for one PIPE and a pair of bolt-on acquisitions in February '08 and January '09). The only disclosed exit was a partial sale of its Party City retail chain (AMSCAN) to Advent International last fall. I know private equity is slow right now, but this is approaching Comcast turtle territory.
