Mistral Equity Partners today closed on its first deal, with a leveraged buyout of Ohio chipmaker Shearer’s. That would be potato chips, not silicon. A source tells peHUB that Mistral acquired a majority stake in Shearer’s from private equity firm Winston Partners, with company management rolling over its existing equity stake. Debt was provided by National […]
Citi Alternative Investments today sent out a 2008 Private Equity Outlook, with such unoriginal predictions as fewer mega-deals, continued globalization and “a continued focus on strategic and operational improvements.” Yawn. But there was one line that caught my attention: “With less leverage available, we expect to see a downward adjustment in pricing, leading to lower […]
Love ‘em or hate ‘em, dividend recaps were a hallmark of the recent buyout boom. Firms would buy companies in highly-levered transactions, and then pile on more debt post-close, in order to reimburse their (paltry) equity commitments. All fun and games until somebody can’t pay the Piper Jaffray. Critics (like me) assailed the practice as […]
Bain Capital this morning announced that it will buy Bright Horizons Family Solutions for $48.25 per share. It also took pains to emphasize that Goldman Sachs had committed debt financing, and that Bain can’t bail due to leverage-related difficulties. But don’t quite begin rooftop yawping about a return to Merger Mondays. The public markets have […]
Mad Moneyman Jim Cramer has published his 2008 predictions, and says that Cerberus’ buyout of Chrysler will go down as the “first real debacle of the private equity era.” Apparently Refco didn’t qualify… Cramer puts odds at 5-1 that Congress will bail out Chrysler (and Cerberus, by extension), which presumably puts the need for such […]
The last thing U.S. buyout firms need right now is new competition on their home turf, but it’s coming anyway. Industry headhunters tell me that they’ve been approached by European buyout firms – both large-market and mid-market – about retaining U.S. staffs to make direct investments. The FT reported last month on such a move from […]
2007 may be the year of mid-market buyouts, and firms are stocking up on capital. The latest is Crestview Partners, which has secured $1.7 billion in commitments for a second fund that should eventually close north of $2 billion. Not too shabby for a firm that only began marketing back in October. New York-based Crestview […]
I just finished putting together the annual “Where Are They Now?” chart for Venture Capital Journal, which tracks all of the comings and going of VCs over the past year. Two things jumped out at me: 1. There were very few general partners who switched firms in 2007. Sure there were some — like Rich Levandov […]
Who says the quick flip is dead? Not The Blackstone Group, which reportedly has filed to take Travelport public, just 15 months after buying the company from Cendant for $4.3 billion (along with One Equity Partners and Technology Crossover Ventures). Now I know this isn’t exactly a textbook quick flip, as Blackstone & Co. will still […]
There’s some new research out contradicting PE industry claims that buyout firms create more jobs than they eliminate. And it comes from some of the most respected academics who study such things, including Steve Davis of the University of Chicago and Josh Lerner of Harvard Biz School. Preliminary info was presented yesterday at the American […]