Erin Griffith

West Hill Partners has ended 18 months of fundraising for what would have been its debut vehicle, according to an LP source. The firm failed to approach its $500 million goal, leading its existing investors to terminate their commitments. West Hill Partners, based in Boston, was founded in mid-2007 by alums of buyout firm J.W. Childs. The firm had secured commitments from Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System and Adams Street, among others. OMERS had committed $75 million, a source said. The total amount raised was $120 million, according to

Yesterday was the first subscription day for interested TALF participants, but due to a seeming lack of preparation and time on both sides, it was extended until tomorrow. Is two days going to make much of a difference? Probably not. Notably, it's not for a lack of interest. The most vocal example is PE pro Wilbur Ross, who expressed his desire to get a piece of the TALF action last week. From what I hear, there are plenty of others in the alternative asset community and elsewhere. At issue is the timing.

A year into this economic mess and the recessionary PR pitch is already a cliche: “It’s the recession, and everything is bad, but my client is the one person/group/firm to defy all odds.” It got so bad that in December we even wrote a story asking for no more “The Middle Market is Still Strong” pitches (mostly because it is not). But today’s laughs in the face of redundant, irrelevant news stories. Before I reveal it, I should mention that

So: While Goldman Sach's PE fund is finding new ways to call capital (ie, debt investments), the firm is lending to its individual employees that cannot meet those calls. (NY Times) Unintended Consequences: How the distressed auto industry has affected two high tech buyouts. (Marketwatch) Riiight: Luxury goods makers are attempting to make buyers of fake Prada feel guilty (because they think soccer moms are going to spring for a $12K purse out of guilt?) (City Room) Banks Are Like Smokers: In case you missed the 60 minutes interview, this blog highlights one of the best/more troublesome metaphors. (ScottDig)

GS Capital Partners is making a plea to its LPs, and it doesn’t have the support of the largest one—itself. GSCP, a private equity arm of Goldman Sachs, is seeking approval from 50% of its investors to use money from its buyout fund to purchase distressed debt. But a whopping $9 billion of the firm’s $20 billion sixth fund came from Goldman Sachs itself -- including contributions from employees -- and those stakeholders do not get to vote on matters such as strategy change, according to the LP agreement.

Secondary LP stakes are such a hot commodity that buyer interest outweighs seller interest, according to a survey from Preqin. A whopping 43% of those surveyed (220 institutional investors) say they’ll consider buying secondary stakes this year, as opposed to just 10% who say they’ll consider selling stakes this year. It’s a definite departure from the recent talk of over-saturated […]

Culled from SEC Filings, these fundraising updates have not been otherwise disclosed: CIVC Capital seeks $575 million for its third fund, with a hard cap of $700 million. The fund, called CIVC Partners Fund IV, was formed in May of 2008. CIVC Capital’s prior fund had $650 million in commitments and closed in 2003. The fund hired UBS as a placement agent in 2008. CIVC is based in Chicago and invests equity slices of between $15 million and $85 million in business services, financial services, marketing and information services companies. Wind Point Partners has raised at least $842 million in commitments toward its seventh fund. The fund, which has a target of $1.15 billion, according to regulatory filings, has at least 43 investors. The firm was slated to hold a first close on greater than $700 million, which is greater than its entire sixth fund, around this time last year. Wind Point is based in Southfield, Mich. and 60% of the firm’s deals are add-ons.

peHUB recently laid out a number of options for investing in the very cheap secondary market, including large dedicated funds raising new pools of capital and publicly-traded funds-of-funds like Conversus Capital. Today we present one more form of secondary investing—the direct secondary. Naturally, that includes the kind of sponsor-to-sponsor deals that some LPs frown upon, but there are several firms whose entire strategy involves taking direct minority investments off PE investors hands. They call this practice “direct secondary” investing. I spoke with David Wachter, a managing director and founding partner of W Capital, one such firm based in New York. The firm is currently investing from its second fund, a $700 million pool of capital which closed $200 million above target in March 2008. Other players in the market include Vision Capital in the UK and Goldman Sachs’ secondaries fund.

Shrinkage: All you PE tourists are about to go by the wayside, as the industry (and hopefully not peHUB's readership) shrinks. (FT) Pray: "Private equity can be our saviour - if it's not demonized" (TheLawyer.com) MidEast: One place where PE is not shrinking-the area's PE firms raised a record-breaking $6.4 billion last year. After Writedowns: Where does PE go from here? (Citywire) Transparency: CD&R has redone its website to include much, much more information on its investments. (CD&R via PE Database)

Talk to any firm that’s painfully plodded along at fundraising for the past year, and they’ll blame it all on the environment. “It’s tough out there with cash-strapped LPs and fears about the future of private equity,” they’ll say. These “Have-Not” firms are basically stuck in fundraising purgatory, and they sing a very, very different tune than that of the “Haves.” And there are certainly plenty of “Haves” who seemed to defy an impossible fundraising market. Just last week Odyssey Capital topped the target on its fourth fund by half. There are more where that came from (incomplete list below). But I want to know, what is the difference here? Are the “Have-Nots” just mediocre firms that got swept up by a rising tide? Are they the “tourist” PE firms like the ones the FT called out today? Or is it a symptom of the type of investors they have? Or is it their investment strategy? What about the performance of existing prior portfolios? Or, maybe the “Haves” simply got lucky?