What's Up With Madison Dearborn?
Last year at this time, Madison Dearborn Capital Partners was one of the private equity market's most talked-about firms. It and its consortium partners had just bailed on an agreement to buy Canadian telco BCE for C$34.8 billion, after failing to obtain positive solvency opinions. That move led BCE to sue for a C$1.2 billion breakup fee, which MDCP and its partners vowed to fight. The Chicago-based firm also was in the midst of raising $7.5 billion for its sixth fund -- down from an original $10 billion target -- with around $4 billion already secured. In 2009, however, MDCP fell off the front pages (including ours). It participated in very few deals -- including no traditional LBOs we could find -- and did not hold any substantive interim fund closes. In fact, the only time MDCP was the focus of a peHUB post was in June, when firm co-founder David Mosher resigned after a 17 year run (he was in charge of investor relations and other non-deal activities). I spent some time speaking with sources close to the firm, and learned the following nuggets:
