Dan Primack
Updated The VSP Capital Memorial trophy is awarded each year to the venture capital firm that most effectively turns itself into a punching bag. The 2007 frontrunner is ComVentures. First came the recent FilmLoop flap, in which ComVentures engineered the sale of one portfolio company to another. Now comes another troubling development: While ComVentures was working to […]
Update: The deal was just announced. Download the press release here: TXU_Release.pdf The Blackstone Group’s claim to the largest leveraged buyout might not last more than a month. Various press reports suggest that Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Texas Pacific Group are nearing a deal for Texan energy giant TXU that could be valued […]
Greetings from the Terminal F foodcourt at Minneapolis International Airport. Almost as posh as last night’s dining digs at the Beaver Creek Ritz Carlton… Anyway, just a quick note to let you know that I have not forgotten you today — but rather have been en route from Colorado to Boston (after getting in a few […]
Most of the companies presenting today at VC in the Rockies fall under the typical venture binary of information technology or life sciences. But there are a few notable exceptions, including the terrifying and thrilling Adam Aircraft. Terrifying because very few VCs really understand the aerospace industry. Thrilling because… Well because they make frickin’ jets (but […]
Updated I was mildly critical of the methodology behind last month’s Forbes Midas List, which ranks VCs by a variety of metrics. But the Forbes folks may have been empirical savants compared to the crew over at Fortune Magazine, which today released its Private Equity Power List. The actual magazine doesn’t hit until next Monday […]
Dali Hook Partners is no more, as co-founders Paul Dali and David Hook appear to have gone their separate ways. Dali is now in charge of successor firm Keynote Ventures, while Hook is running a separate entity called Baymark Partners. The two venture veterans formed Dali Hook in early 2001 to make early-stage investments in […]
It seems like the 2005 drop in Canadian buyout volume was an aberration, based on new data from the CVCA and Thomson Financial. Disclosed values for buyouts of Canadian companies totaled a record US$10.9 billion last year, which is more than double the $4.5 billion tally from 2005. It also is higher than the $6.7 […]
When Craig McCaw’s ClearWire Corp. filed for a $400 million IPO in May 2006, it never got around to filing an amended S-1 with specific offering terms. Instead, the Kirkland, Wash.-based WiMAX company designed a $900 million private equity infusion led by Intel Capital. This time, however, it seems that ClearWire is moving forward. It […]
Warburg Pincus has taken a legal double-whammy in a South Korean court, on charges that it had engaged in insider trading of LG Card shares. Prosecutors had indicted Warburg Pincus managing director Hwang Sung-jin last April, and yesterday a judge sentenced him to four years in prison. The judge also fined Warburg Pincus approximately $57 […]
Tomorrow night, Blackstone Group chief Steve Schwarzman will throw himself an ostentatious 60th birthday party, complete with some crooning from Rod Stewart. The New York society pages estimate that the bash will cost in excess of $4 million, and I’m told that Schwarzman is a bit uncomfortable that the details are being scrutinized as if […]