David Snow

Guggenheim Aviation Partners is on the fundraising trail for a follow-on vehicle that will continue the firm’s strategy of acquiring, converting and leasing aircraft.

Former Apollo partner Michael Gross has filed to take public a ‘blank check’ special purpose acquisition vehicle with a target of $300m, a unique next step for a veteran private equity GP.

Carlyle co-founder David Rubenstein, speaking at the IFC’s Global Private Equity Conference today, said KKR’s recent Euronext IPO will ‘dramatically change’ the private equity industry. His comments come amid a surge in interest in publicly listed private equity vehicles.

At its annual meeting, Blackstone told limited partners it wants to raise its fund cap to nearly $15bn, and is studying the possibility of a public vehicle.

The recently listed KKR Private Equity Investors vehicle creates an immediate pool of nearly $2bn for KKR’s 2006 Fund – a major boost to the firm’s ongoing fundraising effort.

One of the chief architects of the Shinsei Bank turnaround, J. Christopher Flowers, is halfway toward a target of $3.5bn for a financial services private equity fund.

In a joint interview with Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman and Carlyle’s David Rubenstein aired yesterday on US public television, Schwarzman called the Sarbanes-Oxley Act the ‘best thing that’s happened to our business and one of the worst things that’s happened to America’.

While the Great Men of the buyout world are raising mega-billions, the Great Men of the venture industry are going mini – take, for example, the recent activity from venture pioneer Alan Patricof. David Snow reports.

Hedge fund goliath SAC Capital Advisors has hired Blackstone mezzanine professional Mark Gudis to create a major new ‘flexible’ private debt platform.

Thomas H. Lee Partners, the Boston private equity firm that suffered a significant loss on its investment in broker Refco, has won as much as $100m in a settlement with an Austrian bank.