Erin Griffith

Buzzy: The blogosphere was a-buzz today over New York Magazine's cover story on the NY Tech scene and how it's overthrowing Old Media. "Tweet Tweet Boom Boom." (NY Mag) Imagine: Facebook is planning a way for you to "like" button everything on the Internet. Next stop, real life. (Mashable) Obviously: By now you've probably seen Gizmodo's big coup. They found Apple's next iPhone. In a bar. (Gizmodo) Ha: If you like New Yorker Cartoons and are in finance (which, if you're not in finance, than why are you reading peHUB?), you may enjoy this one about caps of the market variety. (New Yorker Via Churchill Financial's On The Left.) How to Say Eyjafjallajokull: That is, of course, the complex name of the Icelandic volcano. Watch this instructional video at your own risk, because man are these ABC hosts annoying. They ask their Icelandic translator if she's been getting a lot of calls from broadcasters who don't know how to say the volcano's name. She answers that yes, she's been getting calls, but from friends who are worried about her family's safety. Meanwhile the bozos on the couch are yukking it up at how "cute" it sounds when she speaks Icelandic. Yeesh. (ABC)

KKR has been seeking between $1 billion and $3 billion for its debut mezzanine fund since 2008, but regulatory filings indicate that it only has raised $329 million to date. The appetite for mezzanine debt that flourished in 2008 has diminished with the return of high yield and senior debt availability. Higher on the capital structure, those forms of debt are cheaper, faster, and more flexible forms of deal finance. But at the height of the credit crunch, mezzanine was extremely popular, both to deal makers and investors. In November 2007, fund managers had accumulated nearly $21 billion in mezzanine funds, up from $19.7 billion raised in all of 2006. That year Goldman Sachs raised the largest ever mezzanine fund, a $13 billion pool.

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. CDC Global Services, a Shanghai unit of CDC Corp., is exploring strategic alternatives after appointing a new CEO. (Press release) GMAC has denied a report in the New York Post which stated ResCap, (Residential Capital), its mortgage unit, was for sale. Old Carco LLC, a unit of Cerberus Capital Management LP, announced that it was seeking a buyer for its 2 manufacturing plants, a manufacturer and wholesaler of cars and trucks.

As usual, we have a week’s worth of ratings actions on the debt of LBO-backed companies from ratings agencies Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s. This week there were two upgrades and a downgrade. Company: Harrah’s Sponsor: Apollo Management and TPG Action: S&P raised its corporate credit and issue-level ratings on the company and its operating subsidiary by one notch. S&P raised the corporate credit rating to 'B-' from 'CCC+'. Highlight: "The ratings upgrade reflects our assessment that several actions taken by management over the past several quarters have positioned the company with sufficient capacity to weather the current downturn in the gaming sector," said Standard & Poor's credit analyst Ben Bubeck.

Oh Brother: This isn't helping the "private equity fat cats" image: Sir Peter Paul Rubens' beautiful and ornate painted ceiling gazed down upon the most successful figures in the private equity industry last night, as they gathered in the Banqueting Hall on Whitehall for the Private Equity News Awards for Excellence in Private Equity. (City AM) A Day In The Life Of An Analyst: A cartoon you may be able to relate to."I just spent all night working on the model you said you needed for today." Director/Associate: "Don't worry about that - I never needed that." Analyst: "Thank you." View it here: (Clusterstock) Live from Tulane: M&A IS BACK. Have ya heard? (If you haven't by now you may want to reevaluate your career as a dealmaker...) (Dealbook)

I’m reporting from Buyouts West #7 in San Francisco. Mark Bradley, Morgan Stanley’s global head of financial sponsors coverage, just interviewed Golden Gate Capital co-founder Jesse Rogers. One interesting thing Rogers discussed is the structure of Golden Gate’s third and latest fund. Raised in late 2007, the firm approached the fund’s structure differently than your typical PE effort. Specifically, it employed an evergreen structure like a hedge fund. Rogers said: When we raised our fund in 2007, we got asset class flexibility, and that turned out to be enormously valuable because we bought a lot of debt over the last few years. We also have a perpetual fund, which gives us the ability to hold assets in definitely. We can feel good about being able to hold assets through cycles. One LP said that the decision wasn’t necessarily all Golden Gate’s idea—one of its large investors, Stanford, had requested the change in order to shake out some of the fund of funds investors. Yet many

Reporting live from Buyouts West. Here are thoughts from Golden Gate Capital Co-founder Jesse Rogers on the “Golden Era” of private equity, mega-fund disdain, and the specter of taking private equity firms public.* On Going Public: Speaking as one person, and not as part of Golden Gate’s partnership, I think it’s antithetical to being a long term investor. It places a huge interest in building fee streams and misalignment with LPs. The lumpy returns that come from private equity is not what the public markets want. As we think strategically with our business, we don’t think that helps. It creates a distraction and fee incentives for things that work against our goal, which is to create superior returns for our LPs.

Goldman's Reputation: Better than ever or in the shitter? (Reuters) Robustness: Joe Weisenthal spends the night with Nassim Taleb. (Business Insider) Deep Thoughts With Crossing Wall Street: Some simplified aphorisms on investing. (CWS) Thorn in Private Equity's Side Removed: Andy Stern is resigning from the SEIU. Collective sigh of relief for private equity? (LBOWire) Chips No Longer Dipping: KKR and Blackstone were relieved at Intel's strong earnings this week, which bodes well for their big semiconductor bets. (WSJ)

* Cuomo Says Greenberg Denials ‘Incredible, Irrelevant' * Atlantic Monthly Goes Against the Economic Cheerleaders. Newsweek and Businessweek have both proclaimed that America is BACK. * No Time to Worry About CalPERS Felix Salmon called CalPERS's response to Stanford's policy brief "well done." * Tax Season is over. Here's how accountants are PARTYING IT UP. * Krugman: Andrew Ross Sorkin Owes Several People An Apology. It's a feud. With words. *Oh God. Finance and music do not go hand-in-hand. This WaMu version of "I like Big Butts" (changed to "I Like Big Bucks," oh the hilarity), proves it.

Does the Private Equity Council have a bat phone? If so, now would be a good time to use it. In a one-two knockout, The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg today published strongly worded anti-private equity columns: The former focusing on transparency, with an overarching theme of evil; and the latter focusing on debt, concluding quite brilliantly that debt is bad and private equity is risky. I'm not a private equity apologist, but both of these pieces seemed weak. There was no new angle or reporting. Each one simply rehashed well-known facts, without addressing arguments from the other side. The Wall Street Journal column, penned by AFL-CIO President Richard Trunka, revisits the New York Times' extensive coverage of THL Partners' big Simmons screw-up. I agree that that situation, and many others like it, is unfortunate. But I don't agree that alternative assets "operate as a shadow financial system" because they aren't required to disclose as much financial information as are publicly-traded companies or funds. Does that mean any large, privately-held business also is part of the seedy underbelly that is the shadow financial system?