Reuters News

(Reuters) – Blackstone Group LP said on Thursday that New Jersey’s public pension fund plans to invest a total of up to $2.5 billion in its funds, making it the largest single-year commitment in the private equity group’s history. New Jersey Division of Investment (NJDOI), which manages the $66.2 billion pension fund, is to invest […]

(Reuters) – Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan has reached a deal to sell its 80 percent stake in the owner of the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs and the NBA’s Raptors to Rogers Communications Inc and BCE Inc for C$1.3 billion ($1.28 billion), a newspaper reported on Friday. Citing unnamed sources close to the situation, the Globe […]

(Reuters) – Zynga Inc Chief Executive Mark Pincus said the social games company can double the number of its paying players but he and other executives sidestepped questions about player retention and churn rates, speaking at a luncheon ahead of its IPO. Zynga executives on Thursday fielded more than a dozen questions from an audience […]

(Reuters) – Consumers spent a record $1.25 billion on Cyber Monday, according to comScore, highlighting how much people love shopping online. But another group is in just as much of a frenzy over online retail: venture capitalists, who invested a record $2.39 billion in online shopping this year, according to Thomson Reuters data. That’s more […]

(Reuters) – High valuations and a lack of suitable targets will force European companies into a holding pattern on mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in 2012, with nearly half planning to sit out large deals next year, a survey found. Forty-six percent of the 148 senior executives surveyed by UBS and Boston Consulting Group said they […]

(Reuters) – Private equity firms, facing shrinking asset values and tough financing conditions, are trimming staff in mature markets, but are also looking to hire in growth areas so that they deliver the returns investors seek. Shrinking fund sizes, crisis in the euro zone and hopes for emerging markets growth are all redrawing the global […]

(Reuters) – U.S. banks will begin more aggressively buying one another in the coming year, Fifth Third Bancorp Chief Executive Kevin Kabat said at an industry conference on Wednesday. Kabat, speaking at the Goldman Sachs Financial Services Conference in New York, said smaller banks weakened by the 2008 global financial crisis and recession will be […]

An outright buyout of Yahoo by private equity firms, the latest fodder from the M&A rumor mill, would test the debt financing market's appetite for a "mega-deal." The institutional loan market, once the piggybank for buyout barons, may only be able to provide $3 billion to $5 billion toward nabbing the $20 billion internet company, according to sources polled by Thomson Reuters LPC. Yahoo's board has yet to put out the for sale sign, but behind closed doors, board members are reportedly interested in a deal. And private equity firms have been circling. Two, Blackstone Group and Bain Capital, are even mulling a $25 billion bid to take all of Yahoo private, Reuters reported last week. A $25 billion buyout would be by multiples the largest LBO since the financial crisis. Though private equity transactions have perked up since 2010, the LBO world has yet to see a "mega-deal," one whose purchase price exceeds $10 billion. The biggest so far have been this year's $7.2 billion buyout of Samson by KKR & Co. followed by the $6.3 billion LBO of Kinetic Concepts by Apax Partners, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and the ...

(Reuters) – Online gaming firm Nexon Co fixed the price for its $1.2 billion initial public offering on Monday at the mid-point of a pre-set range, following U.S.-based rival Zynga in settling for a more conservative valuation amid tough stock market conditions. The public offering, Japan’s biggest this year, was several times oversubscribed, reflecting investor […]

(Reuters) – Zynga Inc could raise $925 million, less than previously planned, in what is still one of the largest and most hotly anticipated Internet IPOs in years. The Facebook game maker plans to sell 100 million shares, or 14.3 percent of the company, at $8.50 to $10 per share, according to a regulatory filing […]