Bain Capital’s attempts to woo LPs with varying fee structures is a sign of innovation other struggling GPs ought to copy.

Trying to get away from relatives this Christmas weekend? Tell them you need to catch up on your reading. Here are the past week’s top 10 posts based on number of pageviews from peHUB’s regular readers.

1. Slideshow: The Year’s Most Prolific PE Buyers – Bernard Vaughan
2. Slideshow: Top 10 PE Fundraising Successes of 2011 – Gregory Roth
3. Romney Still Making Millions from Bain – Reuters
4. A Look At The Angel Market And The Fall In Average Deal Size: Slideshow – Mark Boslet
5. Slideshow: Someone Send Some Love To These Unwanted, CalPERS-Backed Funds (subscribers only) – David Toll
6. U.S. Investor Hellman Dies at 77 – Reuters
7. Triago Claims Le Febvre, Who Is Launching a Competitor, Was Terminated – Luisa Beltran
8. Providence Equity’s Fund VII Hits Fundraising Problems, May Fall Short of $6B Target (subscribers only) – Luisa Beltran
9. Biofuels Winners And Losers: A Look At The Market By Lux – Mark Boslet
10. Remembering Warren Hellman: ‘An Openness To Ideas And To People’ – David Toll

Here are the past week’s top 10 posts based on number of pageviews from peHUB’s regular readers. Hot topics include a portfolio of funds CalPERS unsuccessfully tried to sell on the secondary market, Providence Equity’s troubles hitting its target for fund VII, and unique accounting techniques used by IPO candidates.

1. Slideshow: Someone Send Some Love To These Unwanted, CalPERS-Backed Funds – by David Toll
2. Overrated: Five Things We’d Like a Little Less of in 2012 – by Connie Loizos
3. Providence Equity’s Fund VII Hits Fundraising Problems, May Fall Short of $6B Target – by Luisa Beltran
4. Slideshow: Top Unique Accounting Techniques for IPO Candidates – by Joanna Glasner
5. Sequoia-Backed Jive Will Be A Test Of The IPO Market: Slideshow – by Mark Boslet
6. Slideshow: Five Powerful Women In Private Equity (subscribers only) – by Bernard Vaughan
7. Ron Conway on How New York and Chicago Stack Up to Silicon Valley (subscribers only) – by Mark Boslet
8. Uncle Sam Wants You To Raise An Early Stage VC Fund (subscribers only) – by David Toll
9. Three VCs Weigh In On Incubators, The Late Stage Bubble And Big Data – by Mark Boslet
10. For Startup Employees, Getting Rich Has Never Been More Complicated – by Connie Loizos

Here are this week’s top 10 posts based on number of pageviews from peHUB’s regular readers. Hot topics included powerful women in private equity, details of Zynga’s upcoming IPO and the biggest biotech deals of Q4 so far.

1. Slideshow: Five Powerful Women In Private Equity – by Bernard Vaughan
2. Zynga’s IPO By The Numbers And A Look At Its Three Classes Of Stock: Slideshow – by Mark Boslet
3. Slideshow: Where the Biotech & Device Investors Are–Q4 Edition – by Jonathan Marino
4. Founders Fund on Monday Meetings, Patience, and That New $625 Million Fund – by Connie Loizos
5. Wanted: Private Equity High-Flyers in Growth Areas – by Reuters
6. Slideshow: A Selection of Euro Buyout Fund Terms and Conditions – by Angela Sormani
7. Eight Steps To Mastering Small Company Acquisitions – by Ben Smith
8. The Uniforms of Silicon Valley, a Slideshow (subscribers only) – by Connie Loizos
9. Quien Es Mas Macho? A Slideshow of the Top 5 U.S. PE Funds this Year (subscribers only) – by Luisa Beltran
10. Moody’s: Most Bubble-era LBOs Struggle, while Dollar General, HCA Shine – by Luisa Beltran

Harbinger Group, the listed holding company run by Philip Falcone, has raised $400 million in private stock issuances with funds affiliated with Fortess Investment Group, Providence Equity Capital Markets, Wilton Re Holdings, JHL Capital Group, DDJ Capital Management and Luxor Capital Group. Harbinger Group has raised $900 million over the last nine months.

Buyouts recently wrapped its Q2 quarterly deal wrap-up, and the consensus, to put it bluntly, was ugly. Though our data was cut off at June 15, the results showed U.S.-based PE firms had closed 38 percent less control-stake deals in Q2 than in Q1, according to Thomson Reuters. This suggests many firms have spent much [...]

Warner Music was a very good deal for Thomas H. Lee and Bain Capital.

Today, Access Industries agreed to buy Warner Music in a $3.3 billion deal. Access beat out a bid from Tom and Alec Gores’ Platinum Equity/Gores Group. Access also trumped an offer from Sony which partnered with Guggenheim Partners and investor Ron Perelman. The deal may not be done; the Gores brothers are reportedly considering boosting their offer for Warner.

BERLIN, March 3 (Reuters) – Private equity firms see a strong year for IPOs as institutional investors back growing companies and buyout firms hold on to large stakes in the hope of getting even greater returns. After a rocky start in 2010 as public markets rejected a number of private equity-backed initial public offerings (IPOs), [...]

The list of PE-backed companies looking to pay large dividends to their shareholders continues to grow.

Burlington Coat Factory, which is backed by Bain Capital, is in the market for a $1 billion loan to pay a dividend to its shareholders. JP Morgan is leading sale of the loan, according to Thomson Reuters Loan Pricing Corp.

Bain acquired the Burlington Coat Factory, which sells coats and women’s sportswear, in 2006 for $2.06 billion.

A Bain spokesman says that a portion of the loan will go to refinance debt.

Ascend Learning, which is owned by Providence Equity, is also trying to raise roughly $400 million—including $390 million in loans and $40 million in revolving credit—to pay a dividend, LPC said. Ascend Learning is made up of Assessment Technologies Institute and Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Aug 4 (Reuters) – Private equity firm Providence Equity Partners has had initial talks with investors about raising a new global private equity fund which could be up to $8 billion in size, a source familiar with the situation said on Wednesday. The private equity firm has mostly invested its last major buyout fund, raised [...]