September 2012 Issue

Huron Capital’s 6x return from tobacco testing company Labstat shows that new regulation can sometimes actually boost the bottom line, writes Graham Winfrey

As the MENA region starts to put its economic and social travails behind it, one prominent home-grown GP is sounding bullish, writes Oliver Smiddy

Are waterfall provisions really in the best interests of investors? A new study suggests they end up distorting incentives in a way that could be detrimental to the fund.

Extracting commitments from Latin American LPs may be a long and arduous process – but it can pay off in the end, as Pantheon recently discovered

Political contributions made by employees at private equity firms – including Bain Capital – to super-PACs are heavily favouring one candidate. Guess which one

Fewer relationships; lower fees; higher hurdle rates... PEI’s latest survey of LP priorities makes grim reading for managers

Retiring TA chairman Kevin Landry tells PEI that he still believes in private equity – but thinks that the financial services industry has ‘lost its honesty’. Yolanda Bobeldijk reports

Word is that China-focused FountainVest has collected more than $1bn for its second fund – helped by an unusual pitch presentation earlier this year. Fundraising GPs should take note

The possibility of massive cuts to US defense budgets in 2013 is prompting many firms to back away from the sector, writes Sam Sutton

Prospective buyers must look at income statements from an operator’s point of view, writes Shahriyar Rahmati

The social motivations that typically drive impact investing might seem at odds with the financial imperatives that underpin private equity. But there’s no reason why they have to be mutually exclusive, writes James Taylor

One assumes that during his phenomenally successful private equity career, Mitt Romney probably learned a thing or two about how to schmooze rich people in foreign countries. After all, persuading LPs to commit to Bain funds was presumably a big part of his job.

The expected deluge of deals may not quite have happened yet, but it’s on the way – and in the meantime, the secondaries market continues to be buoyant across the board. By Thomas Duffell and James Taylor

Over the past decade, Hony Capital has become China’s largest private equity manager – raising more than $6bn in the past five years alone and achieving milestone after milestone. Amanda Janis met with founder and CEO John Zhao in Beijing as the firm confronts its next great challenge: demonstrating that very large funds are the right strategy for China’s fast-changing private equity market

Even for EVCA’s impressive chairman, trying to overhaul the industry’s public image in a year like this is an awful lot to ask

Steve Judge, president of the Private Equity Growth Capital Council, on the challenges of explaining private equity to US policymakers

I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard that these Private Equity Multinational people took a month off from publishing in August. They’re journalists, for God’s sake; what exactly do they take a month off from? Here’s me with an incredibly exciting piece of news to share with my fans, and I’m forced to sit on it for another four weeks. It’s barbaric.