Erin Griffith

The Winning Young Entrepreneurs of 2009: The results are in for BusinessWeek's Best Entrepreneurs 25 and Under roundup. Number one is the founders of Emergent. (BW) BX Talks a Little Shit: In a not-so-subtle jab at TPG, Tony James in Blackstone's earnings call said, "Many of our competitors are not so lucky and many are being forced to give back capital, to downsize and to change strategy." More on that from The FT. PE BACK! Some banks are preparing for the return of PE. On the hiring front, UBS Investment Bank and BMO Capital Markets have beefed up their financial sponsors teams. (Dealscape) And Speaking of Hiring: Here's a Q&A with the head of recruiting at Carlyle Group. (FINS)

GE Capital is Back: Analysts are bullish about GE Capital: "We believe the risk GE Capital poses is reduced, 2010 earnings achievability is high, and there is more upside across the company into 2011." That goes in line with a lender I spoke with who said he'd competed with GE Capital on a deal this week for the first time since last year! (WSJ) Where are Harvard Grads Going? "About 11 percent went to private equity or leveraged buyout jobs, and 2 percent took positions in the venture capital industry, compared with 17 percent and 4 percent last year, respectively." (Dealbook) A Brutal Wakeup Call for Part-Time B-Schools: The economic crisis has hit executive MBA and non-degree programs hard, but the savviest are adapting to the new market. (BusinessWeek) The Dark Side of the Productivity Surge: The third-quarter productivity numbers show that business is squeezing more work out of employees in hard times. (BusinessWeek) And Now that You're Overworked More Productive: Businesses aren't going to hire new people to give you a break. (WSJ)

I’m going to pretend peHUB is Page Six for a minute with some light reading (hey, its the end of the day on a Friday). Last night I attended the ACG Private Equity Wine Tasting Gala, where buyout pros attempt to one-up each other with their taste in exclusive, rare fine wines. Each participating firm […]

That’s the mantra I’ve been hearing from PE pros desperate for deals. Sellers want to sell, half of the bankers don’t have any deals to do, and the other half is holding its bounty of sale books hostage. There are bankers out there with literally shelves filled with books, they say. Why aren’t willing sellers […]

As usual, we have a week’s worth of ratings actions on the debt of PE-backed companies from ratings agencies Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s. This week was pretty boring (Perhaps Moody’s was too busy preparing its Mega-buyout report?). There were just three ratings actions, one of which is a withdrawal on an already-bankrupt company. That company is Accuride, a company which Sun Capital took a stake in through its Sun Capital Securities hedge fund earlier this year. The company underwent a debt-for-equity swap as Sun Capital Securities transitioned out of its debt investment strategy to actively managed equity investments. Company: Rafaella Apparel Sponsor: Cerberus Capital Management LP Downgrade: Moody's downgraded the company’s corporate family and probability of default ratings to Caa3 from Caa1, and the rating on its 11.25% second lien notes to Ca from Caa2. Highlights: “Rafaella's liquidity is weak given its significant longer term debt maturities. However, balance sheet cash along with the expectation for modest free cash flow and revolver availability appear sufficient to cover cash needs over the next year.”

Big and Private: Forbes released its list of the largest private companies, and has included a separate slideshow highlighting the biggest firms and their holdings. (Forbes) 09 Bonus Watch: Get ready for your big bonus! They're "BACK!" Unless of course they never went away for you (talking to you, PE pros...). (WSJ) The Man Who Sunk Citi Starting a Hubris Fund: Proof that no matter how much you lost on subprime bets, you can still raise $100 million for a hedge fund. (Dealbreaker) Bank Buyin' Siguler Guff has purchased a stake in a Russian bank. (FT)

Moody's today released a study on the performance of debt on 86 bubble-era mega-deals. Guess what? Just like the crap-performing mega-deals of bubbles past, their debt doesn't look so hot. As Henry Kravis would say, that's just the nature of the beast. peHUB has obtained permission to post the entire study, called $640 Billion & 640 Days Later. Download it below. Of course, any study on private equity performance from ratings agencies takes a necessarily narrow view of the situation. It focuses on on company debt, which looks bad, but doesn't reflect the performance of the overall investment. As my colleague Megan Davies pointed out this morning, the investment can be a success regardless of the company's debt level. In fact, many of the companies which Moody's classifies as "defaulted" only earn that title because they've done a debt-for-equity swap. Lenders usually take a hit on those deals, but the company typically remains unscathed, not to mention, it preserves a buyout fund's investment.

Yesterday Dan linked to this WSJ interview with Henry Kravis and George Roberts, but I wanted to point out my two favorite parts. I was amazed that Roberts blamed "younger people at the firm" for one of KKR's 1998 buyout of Regal Cinemas, which went bankrupt three years later: WSJ: What's been your least proud moment at KKR? GR: When you take it as a collection of work as opposed to picking out one deal I'm proud of what we've been able to do. I'm not proud of the results of some investments, whether it's back in the telecom days of "build it and it will come" -- we drank our fair share of Kool-Aid then. Or when we didn't heed our own advice and were persuaded by some of the younger people at the firm to buy Regal Cinemas. Really? Blaming KKR's weak turn-of-the-century days on listening to the "younger people?" Of course, the firm has emphasized over the years the way it learned from those mistakes by bolstering operational involvement in the companies it owns (and not hiring anymore know-it-all MBA grads). The change was so dramatic that that Fortune in 2005 declared the firm was "back." My other favorite part is of course Kravis' answer to the same question,

Buyout investors shun new funds for secondaries Why No One Knows Where the Economy Really Stands How Women Handle Success The Woman Who Made It on Wall Street Here's How Much The Bailouts Cost YOU: (hint: $1,517) China PE industry surging

Here are some potential target ideas, rumored or official, to jumpstart your deal pipeline. Our sources are various news reports and the Buyouts “Seeking Buyers” list. For prior lists, see below. BioSyntech, Inc., a biotechnology company, retained PricewaterhouseCoopers to advise it with on a formal review of strategic alternatives including, but not limited to, a commercial partnership involving its cartilage repair device BST-CarGel® or a corporate sale of the Company. Pabst Blue Ribbon, the Milwaukee beer brewer, has hired Bank of America Merrill Lynch to shop itself to potential buyers, the New York Post reported. The company expects around $300 million in deal value. Opti Canada, a Calgary-based energy company which is a minority partner in the Long Lake project in northern Alberta, said it was considering selling itself. Smart Balance, the publicly traded maker of butter substitutes, raised new debt to pay off its old debt, saying the new capital structure "enables us to consider strategic alternatives to enhance shareholder value in the years ahead." The company did not say whether those alternatives include a sale of the company.