March 2009 Issue

PIPE deals are expected to increase in the MENA region

Cairo-based Citadel Capital says now is a good time to invest as it launches a $500m fund

Private equity funds in emerging Asia had a successful fundraising year, and are aiming to exploit “ripe” conditions

Commentary on the month's hottest private equity stories by Amanda Janis, editor of PrivateEquityOnline

As an economy and as a private equity market, Australia could do little wrong. How will the country's GPs cope with the rude intervention of global recession?

ECI, one of the UK's oldest private equity firms, closed its ninth fund on £430 million in December. Against a backdrop of tough fundraising conditions, ECI whipped round investors in just three months, overshooting its original target by £30 million. PEI caught up with ECI director Chris Watt to find out more about the firm's plans

Philip Yea brought many changes to 3i – to mixed reviews

In Germany, an iconic maker of model trains has gone bust

The World Economic Forum has given the asset class a pat on the back

A $30 billion avalanche of potential secondary deal flow awaits. So why are funds of funds putting deals on ice? Amanda Janis and Philip Borel investigate

The over-commitment strategy used by many listed private equity vehicles has gone from being a virtue to a vice, but it will survive

Feeder funds, typically offered by private banks, have the highest exposure to high-net-worth individuals, and therefore to potential defaults. David Snow investigates the scale of the problem

Portfolio companies hoping for Chapter 11 protection are increasingly being thwarted. ChristopherWitkowsky reports

In the wake of an influential limited partner's claim that funds of funds represent “ignorant capital”, Andy Thomson investigates whether they still have a key role to play in the private equity industry

Will US President Barack Obama's proposed federal infrastructure reinvestment bank risk sidelining private investors?

NORTH AMERICA IN BRIEF 2009-03-01 Staff Writer CFOS IN FEAR OF LP DEFAULT A third of the roughly 200 private equity chief financial officers and chief operation officers at the Private Equity International CFO and COO forum in New York said

By 2002, after four years in charge of Silvio Berlusconi's holding company, Claudio Sposito had had his fill of the media spotlight. Since then, he has been attempting to make Milan-based Clessidra the leading private equity firm in Italy. Andy Thomson discovers he has developed a new interest in toys

Why three large fund closings may say more about the past than the future

LPs are keeping faith in private equity, despite falling valuations. By ChristopherWitkowsky

These exceptional times allow GPs and LPs alike to make startling admissions and ask for unusual concessions. Those who withhold bad news do so at great peril

In the second of a series, PEI applies an ancient art form to a modern (private equity-related) setting: Here comes a large bus Filled with lawmakers, angry Push the hedge fund guy! *Haiku is a short, naturalistic form of Japanese poetry, which first began as a form of humorous light verse, known alternatively as haikai […]

A Scottish diagnostics firm is marketing new technology to identify cervical cancer – with the help of venture capitalists

Today's limited partner is likely to take a highly sceptical view of the unreconstructed fundraising sales pitch. Below are ten unsophisticated lines that GPs might deliver carelessly, accompanied by the mental notes they ought to provoke in a world-weary LP

Matilda Batttersby asks VCs about the revolutionary potential of touch-screen technology

A Terrible idea 2009-03-01 Staff Writer Design guru Michael Peters, the man who redesigned the UK Conservative Party logo in the 1980s, has gathered £10 million (€11 million; $14 million) for a private equity fund with a bit of swagger. Creative Capital Ventures only invests in business for which Peters is p

The Central American Mezzanine Infrastructure Fund, the first of its kind in the region, will help plug financing gaps in infrastructure-starved Central America

Buffalo, sold ya 2009-03-01 Staff Writer US private equity firm Hilco Consumer Capital has teamed up with the family of musical legend and icon Bob Marley. Hilco stumped up $20 million, according to the Wall Street Journal, to buy half of House of Marley, a joint venture with Mar

A Nigerian presence is the next logical step for Standard Bank's captive private equity team

Stephen's sartorial advice 2009-03-01 Staff Writer While attending the most recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, blogger Arianna Huffington bumped into what she described as a markedly “upbeat” Stephen Schwarzman – a standout amid the mostly fearful financial types. “You are walking with your h

It liked it so much, it backed it twice. Toby Mitchenall finds out why South African private equity firm Ethos has invested for a second time in calcium carbonate producer Idwala

Commitment issues Staff 2009-03-01 Writer It seems appropriate, measured against the descent of the global economy, that limited partner liquidity constraints have deteriorated from “we can't invest as much as we would like to” (denominator effect) to “can we please invest less than we agreed t