IT Company Backed By Berkshire, BancBoston –

Berkshire Partners and BancBoston Capital last month agreed to back a former Cendant Corp. executive to make acquisitions in the business-to-business information management industry.

The two Boston-based private equity firms jointly will commit as much as $125 million to Paul Walsh, head of the newly-formed iDeal Partners, who will build information services platforms.

Mr. Walsh is the former chief executive officer of Write Express, which managed re-fueling schedules for fleets of commercial vehicles on an outsourced basis. Write Express was a susidiary of Ideon, which was bought by Cendant, a travel and shopping services company, in 1996. In 1998, Cendant revealed extensive accounting irregularities in its financial statements, and its stock price plummeted. The irregularities were not related to Write Express’s business, according to public records.

Mr. Walsh opted to leave Write Express and join with the two private equity firms late last year. iDeal, based in Portland, Maine, has yet to make any acquisitions, although it has bid on two companies, the names of which Mr. Walsh declined to disclose.

iDeal is looking for companies that have revenue of at least $50 million. “What we fancy we have here is a new platform where we can be an outsourcing solution to companies that want to manage large information flows,” said Garth Greimann, a managing director at Berkshire Partners.

Mr. Walsh said iDeal will consider investing in multiple platforms only if the business models are complementary.

iDeal represents the first time that Berkshire Partners and BancBoston Capital have directly co-invested together. However, BancBoston is a limited partner in Berkshire Partners’ Fund V, which garnered $880 million in late October. BancBoston also has provided mezzanine financing for past Berkshire Partners deals, Mr. Greimann said.