HONG KONG (Reuters) – A consortium led by private equity firm FountainVest Partners plans to buy nearly $99 million worth of convertible bonds issued by Central China Real Estate (0832.HK), sending its shares up nearly 9 percent on Wednesday. Central China signed an agreement to issue HK$765 million ($98.72 million) worth of convertible bonds to […]
MILAN (Reuters) – Talks between Italian designer Roberto Cavalli and private equity fund Clessidra over a stake in the fashion house have been broken off, a source close to the matter said on Wednesday. Cavalli, known for his animal print designs and flowing long dresses, told an Italian newspaper in June he had signed a […]
This year the bonuses will be distributed in blood diamonds: I love it when satire becomes reality. Weeks ago the New Yorker published a mock internal letter from Lloyd Blankfein to Goldman Sachs employees, asking them to cut down on conspicuous consumption in light of the firms egregious bonuses. This week Blankfein does just that, according to the New York Post. At It Again: That eternal thorn in private equity's side, Andy Stern, has filed a big private equity diss in the Wall Street Journal's op-ed pages, focusing on bank investments.(WSJ) They're Already Longer Than Most: "Fundraising cycles for large private equity houses are likely to lengthen as the slow pace of investment leaves many with unspent capital from previous funds, said the head of HarbourVest's fund of funds business in Europe." (Reuters) Pundit War: Its blogger versus talking head. Charlie Gasparino of CNBC says Felix Salmon (of Reuters) has a "bizarre, on-again, off-again obsession" with him. Appalling that Salmon can't even be consistently obsessed with a CNBC anchor. (Business Insider)
Online genealogy company Ancestry.com yesterday filed for a $75 million IPO, and some people instinctively began buzzing about the prospects for yet another VC-backed IPO (following hits like OpenTable and LogMeIn). Only problem is that Ancestry.com isn't really VC-backed. At least not anymore. The Provo-Utah-based company was founded in 1998, and that October raised $10 million in Series A funding from CMGI @Ventures, Epic Ventures and Intel Capital. Less than one year later, it would raise $38 million in Series B funding at a $163 million post-money valuation. The existing shareholders were joined by newbies like Amerindo Investment Advisors, Compaq Computer Corp., L Capital Management, Pivotal Asset Management and Tango Partners. It was all perfectly bubblicious. Beginning in 2003 and 2004, however, some of those investors began quietly selling shares in Ancestry.com to Spectrum Equity Investors, one of the very few private equity shops to dabble
Last month, The Treasury Department named nine managers for the PPIP, which is designed to help banks escape the toxic messes of their own making. It also said "over 100 unique applications... were received." It almost sounded like PPIP was so popular that Treasury had to beat off hopeful participants with a stick. To know for sure, though, we though it would be helpful to have a list of the rejected applicants. After all, what if my grandmother was one of them? I love her (and she is "unique"), but she's not quite as qualified for PPIP as, say, The Carlyle Group would be. Unfortunately, a Treasury Department spokesman declined to provide the list when I originally asked, so Thomson Reuters filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on July 10. We asked only for the names of the applicants, not for any associated financials. We have since received a reply dated July 28 from Stephen A. Moffett, administrative officer for the Office of Financial Stability. It reads, in part:
Spent some time earlier today on Reuters Insider, from my usual perch. Topic was tomorrow's expeced pricing of the Avago Technologies IPO, what it could mean for KKR, etc. (plus, a rehash of the below post about Fidelity):
Avago Technologies is set to price its IPO tomorrow night, in what will be the first test of KKR’s recent agreement with Fidelity Investments. For the uninitiated, here is how KKR described the program last month:
Through the new relationship, Fidelity will have exclusive access to retail securities that are allocated to KKR in all U.S. public offerings in which KKR participates as an underwriter, including IPOs and follow-on offerings. Those retail securities will be made available to Fidelity's retail brokerage customers as well as to accounts managed by Fidelity's registered investment advisor (RIA), correspondent broker-dealer and other institutional clients. KKR will act as the underwriter of all retail securities that are distributed by Fidelity under the arrangement.
I happen to be a Fidelity retail brokerage customer, so decided to ring up customer service in order to divine some more info about the offering. What I learned, however, was that this agreement is only for certain Fidelity brokerage customers. Specifically, you need to have
Ancestry.com, a Provo, Utah-based online resource for family history, has filed for a $75 million IPO. It plans to trade on the Nasdaq or NYSE under ticker symbol ACOM, with Morgan Stanley and BoA Merrill Lynch serving as co-lead underwriters. Shareholders include Spectrum Equity Investors (67%), Crosslink Capital (6.2%) and W Capital Partners (6.1%). A predecessor company […]
FRANKFURT (Reuters) – German chipmaker Infineon (IFXGn.DE) said on Monday it had raised at least 692 million euros ($986 million) in a share offer, with U.S. investment firm Apollo taking up fewer shares than expected. Infineon said Apollo could take up as many as 15 million shares or 1.4 percent of the company’s increased share […]
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A U.S. bank regulator is expected to move quickly in finalizing guidelines on private equity investments in failed banks, possibly easing one of its most controversial proposals, sources said on Monday. The rules could be finalized as soon as this month and could see a key measure that is being proposed […]