Dan Primack

Last November, Bessemer Venture Partners and Insight Venture Partners agreed to acquire enterprise software company Netsmart Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq: NTST) for $115 million. It looked like a typical public-to-private buyout – save for the semi-oddity of venture capital firms doing the buying. No big deal. But certain Netsmart shareholders believed that the $16.50 per share […]

Apologies, but Almedia Capital has asked us to remove the survey… I’ve written a lot about the difficulties faced by first-time fund managers when raising inaugural funds, and spoke with two such managers yesterday. The gripes were familiar: “Most LPs would rather do follow-on funds with longtime general partners. Why don’t they want to take […]

First Reserve president Ben Guill has resigned, peHUB has learned. The move takes effect in April, and comes just seven months after First Reserve closed its eleventh energy-focused fund with $7.8 billion. No successor has been named. “It was really quite stunning to hear,” said one limited partner in the new First Reserve fund. “He’s […]

Last week, this space reported that Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) was considering legislation that would result in increased taxes for the private equity industry. Part of the pretext was that Grassley has particular leverage because such a move was unlikely to ruffle any feathers in his home state of Iowa. After all, how often have […]

Tom Peters, author of legendary biz book In Search of Excellence, has just agreed to give a keynote address at Buyouts Symposium East. And now you and your team can spend some 1-on-1 time with him. If you register for Buyouts Symposium by March 30, you will be entered into a random drawing to have […]

The presidential season has arrived on Wall Street, with candidates rushing to prostrate themselves in front of financial powerbrokers. You can find out who Henry Kravis, etc. are backing in this New York Observer piece. But we want to know who YOU are supporting. So we’ve put together a nifty little survey that asks three quick questions: (1) […]

The strange case of AA Capital Partners has gotten stranger – and this time it’s a limited partner that appears to be acting badly. For those who don’t remember, AA is the Chicago-based private equity firm that last September was accused of misappropriating at least $10.7 million from its six union pension fund investors. Specifically, […]

In early February, my corporate overlords sent word that Rudy Giuliani had agreed to deliver a keynote address at the Buyouts Symposium East conference in April. It was a big get for us, particularly considering that he was a de facto presidential candidate and had become a near-mythological hero after 9/11. It also was a bit […]

Odyssey Investment Partners co-founder Muzzafar “Muzzi” Mirza passed away last Friday night at the age of 49, after a battle with pancreatic cancer. A memorial service is being planned for March 29 at the Hyatt Regency in Greenwich, Connecticut. Muzzi began his private equity career in the early 1980s, as a member of Marine Midland […]

The convergence of hedge and private equity funds has been one of the most overplayed stories of the past few years, but the linkage seems to have beencemented in the minds of folks like Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA). This isn’t to say that Grassley can’t distinguish between hedge and private equity (he can), but rather […]