Good afternoon, fine readers of peHUB. My name is Heidi N. Moore, and I'll be one of your cruise directors for the next two weeks. If you look out the windows on your left side, you'll see a massive crisis surrounding European sovereign debt. Those on the right side of the ship will see unprecedented lack of faith in our national stock markets. Crisis, crisis everywhere, and not a moment to think. So here's the question: How and why did private equity somehow avoid its own massive crash? Consider how the industry has come roaring back in recent weeks. Financing is looking pretty good; the junk bond markets are booming to record volume and pricing levels not seen since 2007. Leverage multiples are lofty, to say
Award-winning poet Sophie Cabot Black has some verse featured in an upcoming issue of The New Yorker, but her subject matter isn't love, grief or epiphany. Instead, she takes an odd turn toward private equity. Her conclusion:
Used. To draw out more than what is put in.
Everyone wants beyond; even with the one last page
As exit plan it is the return that is watched and how We will be known. To end up where we start
Again, and to look as if we gained.
Read the entire poem here
The Riverside Company just announced that its Microcap Fund has bought Mansell Group, an Atlanta-based email marketing company. No financial terms were disclosed, except that fifth Fifth Street Capital provided debt financing. Not the sort of thing that typically gets a stand-alone blog post, but Mansell isn't just any virtual postmaster. For the past five years, it's been responsible for sending out peHUB Wire each morning (58k subscribers and counting... join here).
(Reuters) – Mexican restaurant chain Rubio’s Restaurants Inc (RUBO.O) said it agreed to be acquired by private equity firm Mill Road Capital LP for about $91 million in cash. The offer of $8.70 a share represents a premium of about 14 percent to Rubio’s Friday closing price of $7.66. Ralph Rubio, Dan Pittard and Rosewood […]
Apax Partners has agreed to acquire a 54.25% interest in TIVIT, a provider of IT and BPO services in Latin Americal, at an enterprise value of approximately $1 billion. Sellers include Votorantim Novos Negócios and Pátria Investimentos.
HONG KONG (Reuters) – Private equity fund CVC Asia Pacific won the auction for Acument Global Technologies Asian assets, a deal estimated to be worth more than $300 million, sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. CVC beat buyout funds Unitas and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co for the assets, which Platinum Equity, a […]
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS.N) is close to a deal to provide financing of $2.2 billion to one of the groups bidding for mid-priced U.S. hotel chain Extended Stay, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday. It would provide the financing for the bidding group led by Starwood Capital Group, the […]
Goodman Global Inc., a Houston, Texas-based manufacturer of residential and light commercial heating, ventilation and air-conditioning equipment, has filed for a $500 million IPO. The company was taken private in 2008 by Hellman & Friedman for $2.65 billion. It reports $1.85 billion in sales and $99 million in net income for 2009, compared to $1.88 […]
LONDON (Reuters) – Virgin Money, part of entrepreneur Richard Branson’s business conglomerate, has been excluded from the race for 318 branches being sold by Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS.L), sources familiar with the matter said on Saturday. Virgin had been one of four remaining bidders for what could rank as Britain’s sixth biggest bank, but […]
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Access Industries, Russian billionaire Len Blavatnik’s holding company, has dropped out of the auction for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as the studio’s creditors meet with Hollywood experts to conduct due diligence on a standalone plan, sources familiar with the matter said. The lenders’ steering committee, led by JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), Highland Capital […]