Just two years after buying BWAY Holding, Madison Dearborn Partners has put the company up for sale.

Madison Dearborn looks like it will exit Bolthouse Farms after a near seven-year hold.

CVC has beaten out other buyout firms, including Madison Dearborn Partners and Providence Equity Partners, in the race to buy AlixPartners from private equity owner Hellman & Friedman, sources tell Reuters.

It’s looking glum in the M&A world as deal values for first quarter transactions dropped 53%. But the value of PE-backed transactions actually rose, according to Thomson Reuters.

Tomkins, which is backed by Onex Corp. and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, has agreed to sell its Schrader division to Madison Dearborn Partners. The sale price is $505 million cash, plus a small minority equity interest in the parent of the purchasing company. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter. Schrader [...]

After less than two years, Madison Dearborn agrees to sell TransUnion to GS Capital and Advent in a deal valued at more than $3 billion. The Pritzker family is also cashing out.

Crown Castle International Corp. will buy privately held NextG Networks Inc. for about $1 billion, Reuters reported. NextG, which is owned by a group of investors led by Madison Dearborn Partners, operates thousands of distributed antenna systems in major U.S. cities including New York and Chicago, Reuters wrote. Crown Castle is a publicly traded wireless tower company.

Did broad market volatility last week slam shut the IPO window?

It’s not really clear. IPOs, in August, typically fall into a lull as much of Wall Street goes on vacation. Fourth quarter is usually the strongest time for new offerings. But August has been very slow. Eleven IPOs were pulled last week due to poor market conditions. Of these, four were PE-backed, according to Dealogic.

Carbonite, last week, succeeded in going public (shares of the company rose nearly 24%). Including Carbointe, only three deals have priced this month (SandRidge Permian Trust and American Capital Mortgage Investment Corp. are the other two). Only one other deal is on deck for August, Dealogic says.

It’s not clear what will happen to companies waiting to go pubic. There are 54 private equity-backed companies that have filed for IPOs this year, worth a combined $12.54 billion, Dealogic says. Last year at this time, we also had 54 PE-backed companies that registered for an offering, raising a combined $15.8 billion. This included HCA’s $3.5 billion deal.

The IPO window will likely open back up but it’s not clear what companies will be able to go pubilc. Of course, just because a company files for an IPO doesn’t necessarily mean it will go public. Many times, companies file and just sit in registration as they wait for the perfect time to IPO. Or, as they wait, they get sold.

Here’s a list of the top 10 PE-backed IPO’s that are currently in registration, according to Dealogic.

2011 could prove to be a critical year for Madison Dearborn Partners. The Chicago-based shop has taken some lumps in recent years for reaching too far on big deals during the buyout boom and subsequently struggling to raise its sixth buyout fund. And its previous fund, a 2006 vintage, has a lot to prove, according [...]

As someone who grew up watching “Sabado Gigante,” I was amazed (and happy!) when Televisa announced it would invest $1.2 billion in Univision.

The two broadcasters have been bitter rivals for forever it seems. Televisa, with the deal, gets a 5% stake in Univision as well as debt that is convertible into another 30%. On Wednesday, Standard & Poor’s placed Univision’s “B-” rating on creditwatch with positive implications. The Televisa deal improves Univision’s financial flexibility and resolves uncertainty regarding Univision’s programming license with Televisa, its main program supplier, S&P said.