Taiwan financial holding firm Cathay Financial has paid $155 million for a 3.45% stake in Taishin Financial, buying the stake from buyout firm Newbridge Capital, Reuters reported. U.S.-based Newbridge Capital invested T$27 billion in 2006 for a 18 percent stake in Taishin and was its largest single foreign stake holder, Reuters wrote.

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System is, as everybody knows, the nation’s largest public pension fund with $233.6 billion of assets as of March 31 (the latest figure available, reported today). It also has one of the industry’s largest portfolios of private equity investments; its $33.2 billion Alternative Investment Management program represents 14.2% of its total assets.

We thought it would be interesting to find some of the system’s top-ranking funds, which it reports on its Web site. The list that follows is current through Sept. 30. Sponsors report mark-to-market values on their portfolios quarterly, and they have 120 days to provide the information to their investors, so there is a two-quarter lag before CalPERS reports individual fund performance to the public.

This slide show is a countdown, presented ranked by investment multiple. (As a point of comparison, when sister publication Buyouts Magazine did its annual ranking of fund performance last fall, based on reports from multiple sponsors, we found that it required a 2.0 investment multiple to crack the top quartile.) We had one tie, at No. 8. There we ranked T3 Partners II LP higher than CVC European Equity Partners III LP because of its larger IRR.

HONGKONG (Reuters) – China’s Shenzhen Development Bank (000001.SZ) plans to raise at least 8 billion yuan ($1.17 billion) selling a stake to Ping An Insurance (Group) (2318.HK) via a private placement of shares, a person with direct knowledge of the deal said on Friday. Ping An plans to buy the shares for at least 16.4 [...]

SHANGHAI/HONG KONG (Reuters) – Shenzhen Development Bank (SDB) (000001.SZ), China’s first foreign investor-controlled lender, will likely return to local ownership if U.S. private equity giant TPG Capital can unload its near 17 percent stake once a lock-up lapses next year. TPG, which owns the stake via its Newbridge Capital fund, is the largest SDB shareholder, [...]

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China Development Bank said it had no plan to buy Shenzhen Development Bank (000001.SZ), whose shares rose 10 percent on Monday after local media reported it might be bought by the state-owned bank. CDB, which lends in line with government policies but is now converting itself into a commercial bank, may buy [...]