March 2003 Issue

PEI talks to New York-based Ted Virtue, head of newly minted MidOcean Partners that comprises the direct investment portfolio and personnel of the former DB Capital, Deutsche Bank's private equity arm. MidOcean's spin-out, announced late in February, was backed by a syndicate of investors led by Dutch giant NIB Capital.

Fund PolyTechnos Venture Fund II Firm PolyTechnos Venture Partners Investors Access Capital Partners, Bank of Fund Type Venture capital America Equity Partners, Commonfund, Status Final closing Eastman Chemical Company, Geographical Focus European Union Vanderbilt University, Wilshire Sectoral Focus IT, communications and life sciences Associates Europe, European Amount Raised €130m Investment Fund Amount Targeted €150-180m Advisors […]

Don't confuse family offices with the high net worth community when it comes to committing to private equity. Whilst many of the latter have had to retrench, wealthy family groups remain active and powerful in the asset class as providers of capital and investment talent. Alex J. Stockham takes a closer look.

Upstart funds of funds, which typically aren't big enough to survive on management fees alone, now find it hard to charge carried interest. Whilst the heavyweight funds can rely on relationships and precedent, the salvation of the newer, smaller players may lie in the management of specialist funds, and in attracting high net worth individuals, writes Simon Sheppard.

The private equity fund-of-funds business is changing shape, with major players managing multi-billion dollar (and Euro) sized funds working hard to differentiate their brands and more specialist, niche operations drilling deeper into their selected fields. Both are responses to the same issue: investors are no longer buying the simple “buy me and your private equity allocation is sorted” pitch from FoFs. As a result other fund of funds managers are finding it tough going. Philip Borel looks at how the business is shaping up.

Most major financial services groups have – or, for some, had - in-house private equity businesses. Should you have given them your money? Should anyone still? Detractors of captive private equity firms point to their potential for rampant conflicts of interest and pandemic employee turnover. Supporters say these groups have valuable networks and, when properly structured, can provide access to great investment talent and top-notch deals. David Snow finds out who is right.

Kate Bingham is a general partner at Schroder Venture Life Sciences in London. As a venture capitalist, she could be expected to have little to cheer about in the current environment. And to some. as a biotech venture capitalist, she could be expected to be even more downbeat. Will the future for life science investors be bright? Bingham thinks so and sees most of the fundamentals moving in the right direction. Part of the challenge now is to help the European biotech sector live up to expectations, she tells Philip Borel.

The recent completion of the sale of the remaining German cable franchises held by Deutsche Telekom to a consortium of private equity buyers made up of Apax Partners, Goldman Sachs and Providence Equity Partners for €1.725 billion was a landmark transaction for the sector. This conclusion has been a long time coming: the debt-burdened DT […]

When industry bodies start to produce guidelines and best practice recommendations a number of themes come to mind. Have there been problems that have required this response? If these are suggestions, not rules, what weight will they carry with whom and where? And maybe, as a follow up to that last question: why?

Internal re-engineering Staff 2003-03-01 Writer A quick skim through this issue provides plenty of evidence that the private equity industry is maturing fast. Its size, diversity and importance are perhaps relative givens by now but it is arguably less often assumed that the asset class is capa