Kirtland Capital Partners has acquired Northwest Mailing Service Inc., a Chicago-based direct mail marketing company. No financial terms were disclosed. Kirtland will use Northwest as an acquisition platform.
SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korean private equity firm Vogo Fund is buying the 30.7 percent stake of two banks in a domestic card processing company for $156 million and is in talks with other banks to raise its holdings to more than 50 percent within this year. Vogo Fund said on Monday it had signed […]
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – Freedom Communications Inc, owner of the Orange County Register newspaper, is expected to declare bankruptcy this week, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday. Freedom, which has been majority owned for more than 70 years by the Hoiles family, has reached agreements with its lenders to restructure its debts, the newspaper reported […]
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The reinvigorated market for initial public offerings has sparked a rash of new filings by prominent companies that have been waiting for years for the chance to go public, setting the stage for potentially billions of dollars in IPOs by the end of the year. So far in August, 11 companies […]
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Insurance giant American International Group (AIG.N) has paused the auction of its aircraft leasing firm, International Lease Finance Corp. (ILFC), as its new CEO reviews the divestiture process, a source familiar with the situation said on Friday. The new CEO, Robert Benmosche, is responsible for leading AIG in repaying more than […]
On The Market: Blackstone Group Chief Executive Stephen Schwarzman has listed a 2.1-acre property in East Hampton, N.Y., for $7.2 million. Don't worry. He's wrapping up work on a house he's building on a 9.9-acre estate in nearby Water Mill, which he bought for $34 million in 2005. (NY Times) Rebuttals: The Private Equiteer takes issue with the Economist's "scathing" piece on the puzzle of private equity. Particularly the line which states that you are far more likely to achieve billionaire status by running an asset management business than by setting up an operating business. (Private Equiteer) Deals Deals Deals: Terra Firma purchased a wind energy business for $350 million. (Reuters) Deal Journal calls the deal "a bold move." (DJ) The Most Powerful Banker You've Never Heard of: Lewis Kaden is the ultimate behind-the-scenes power player. Lobbying the White House for Citi may be his biggest role yet. (BusinessWeek) Good News and Bad News: For the FDIC there's a long tunnel and little light. (Rolfe Winkler) But, you know, don't worry about the FDIC. (Felix Salmon)
Mergermarket today released its half-year private equity review, suggesting that private equity may have hit a bottom. Between Q1 and Q2, deal volume only decreased 4%. That’s a relatively shallow fall, when compared with the 49% plummet between Q3 and Q4 of last year. Exit data looks similar:
After declining 44% from Q3 to Q4 last year, exit volume this year has been on a slow but steady rise, gaining an average of two deals in each quarter.
Financial services and dominated deal activity, taking 70% of aggregate deal value in the first half of the year, thanks to deals like IndyMac, iShares and BankUnited. Many of the deals were in the asset management subsector, “which offered and continues to offer a variety of healthy, attractively priced businesses.” Thanks to parent company distress, forced divestitures have provided a fertile buying ground.
(Reuters) – The owners of the New York Mets will be forced to sell the pro baseball team due to huge losses suffered in the Bernard Madoff swindle, the author of a book about the disgraced money manager said on Friday. The Wilpon family, led by Mets owner Fred Wilpon, lost about $700 million because […]
FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Indebted German cable provider Tele Columbus could be sold soon and is being circled by several potential buyers, sources close to the deal told Reuters on Friday. The selling process could begin in the next couple of weeks, the sources said. Financial sources said the deal could be valued at 400-500 million […]
As usual, we have a week's worth of ratings actions on the debt of sponsor-backed companies, via ratings agencies Standard & Poor's Ratings Services and Moody's Investors Service. A rare occurrence this week: S&P lowered its ratings on an actual private equity firm: American Capital, the BDC/buyout firm that's facing some creditor troubles, was downgraded to ‘B-'. No word on the progress of those creditor negotiations since the firm's earnings call earlier this month (which also provided no update). However, the firm did register to sell a $1.5 billion mixed-shelf offering on August 20. Company: American Capital Ltd.
Sponsor: -
Downgrade: S&P lowered the long-term counterparty credit rating on American Capital to 'B-' from 'BB-'.
Highlights: "The rating action reflects the accelerated deterioration in the firm's realized earnings and reported leverage in second-quarter 2009, as well as the weakening performance of its portfolio companies. The firm's coverage of interest by realized earnings that are not dependent on investment exits declined significantly to 1.0x in the second quarter from 1.8x in the previous quarter and 2.9x for 2008. Moreover, while we had expected further portfolio depreciation, the unrealized write-downs in the second quarter, coupled with the slowdown in investment exits, has driven leverage to 2.3x--well above the 1.0x that had been required by covenants and is required for compliance with business development company (BDC) regulations."