PEI Staff

Dan asked me to blog a long time ago. I could claim being busy, ignorant or uninformed. Some in the industry would say all of the above. In fact, I was concerned about my confidentiality in the food chain. I talk to a lot of venture capitalists daily about their portfolios, potential investments and, more […]

Typical Blackstone, which finally closed on its mega $21.7 billion dollar fund, the same week Barry Bonds broke the most coveted record in American sports. (Did Goldman send a taped video message congratulating them?). Hats of to them and the fact that it is pretty amazing that Blackstone has been able to raise close to $67 […]

I just read this news: The Carlyle Group and Onex Partners have completed their acquisition of Allison Transmission from General Motors Corp., for $5.575 billion. The $1.5 billion equity tranchewas split evenly between Carlyle and Onex, while current Allison president Lawrence Dewey has become CEO of the newly-independent company. It led me to wonder whether […]

In their inevitable search for more tax revenue, some in Congress have latched onto an idea that would irreparably damage the most effective growth engine of the American economy: Private equity funds. Convinced that they can have their cake and eat it too, they want to change tax treatment of long-term “carried interest” rights held […]

Most analysts have predicted that the current PE-backed M&A boom will exhaust itself when the sprinting credit market finally stops to catch its breath. But Robert Keiser and Matthew Toole, analysts at Thomson Financial (peHub’s sugar daddy), made a strong case this morning that the boom times are attributable to more than just cheap debt. […]

Times Square is ground zero of private equity’s conquest of corporate America, and Andrew McDonald’s goal is to explain that to as many people as he can. On Wednesday, McDonald, a spokesman for the Service Employees International Union, led a tour of the area to highlight the number of household company names owned by buyout […]

If you at all follow the start-up industry, you have heard the taxing news: Congress wants to raise taxes on VCs and private equity executives. Blackstone’s IPO and the perceived excessive economics reaped by the firm’s principals appears to have been the impetus for the new legislation proposed by representatives Charles Rangel (D-NY) and Barney Frank […]

The goal: obtain information about M&A etc.  Current target: “30% aimed at chief investment officers” (sic) More compelling target: you How they are doing it: Research using general search and even systems like LinkedIn/MySpace/Facebook, craft personalized phishing e-mails (that appear to come from friends) with links that point to malicious sites (that probably look like familiar […]

If there was any doubt about the arrival of private equity as a hot-button issue in the District of Columbia, take a gander at today’s Congressional scoreboard: Hearings on the U.S. Attorney Flap: 1 Hearings on Private Equity: 3 Lawmakers in both houses of Congress pored over just about every aspect of the public-slash-political debate […]

Following a month of chatter, Congress this week finally begins debating the tax treatment of carried interest. On Wednesday, the Senate Finance Committee is holding a hearing. These hearings typically precede the adoption or rejection of legislation. Quick recap: Lawmakers have suggested taxing carried interest as ordinary income (a 35% rate) rather than as long-term […]