Blog Post
Bye bye buyouts
There was a generally sombre mood at the AFIC conference this month, with previsions for the remainder of 2009 being predominantly bleak according to both GPs and LPs. There was speculation that funding concerns for certain independent GPs are becoming...
Regulatory remedies
At the time of going to press, the industry is awaiting the draft legislation from the EU Commission on private equity. What form the new regulations will take remains something of a mystery. Legislators can't even make up their minds whether to support...
Eye of the storm
unquote" figures from the first quarter of this year show a seemingly hibernating industry, with deal activity in Europe at its lowest since Q3 1996. A lack of financing explains the dearth of deals to a certain degree, but equally important is the uncertainty...
Party like it's 1988
It should come as little surprise that the recent uptick in M&A activity is largely on the back of distressed parents selling off non-core, albeit sound, assets. This was, after all, what many had been betting on, and why so many private equity houses...
Only fools rush(ed) in
Many in the financial sector are finding out that what can appear to be initially a good (cheap) idea can come back to haunt you and turn out to be an expensive ordeal. Some of the larger buyout houses are obviously feeling this, as they see some of their...
One hundred
While a "reflective" mood was prevailant at the EVCA Investors' Forum in Geneva, with talk of many GPs potentially going to the wall, things in France have been rather good in contrast
Point of no return
What determines the future of a portfolio company? GPs with spotless track records are falling into trouble, and the operational expertise and hands-on approach once heralded and admired are no longer sufficient. It seems the industry, as everyone else,...
Regulating away from recovery
The usual boom of activity that accompanies the onset of spring has failed to materialise this year. The change this season is one of regulation
Of timing and opportunity
The market has ground to a halt. In the UK, deal flow has almost halved from a year ago to just 20-25 deals a month nowadays. But this hides the fact that a strong undercurrent lies beneath. Everyone is busy, trimming down costs, refinancing, reorganising;...
Tell me something good
Nowadays good news is roughly as scarce as leverage. Broadsheets are full of statistics on how many jobs will be lost and constantly threaten further sterling devaluation through quantitative easing (which curiously seems as imminent as it does elusive)...
Allez la France
With the debt markets still closed and the likes of Barclays PE stating that it expects to invest around half as much in 2009 as it did in the previous year, it was no surprise to see that this month's dealflow was predominantly located in the expansion...
Fire and fury
It is probably part of human psychology to break out into activism for activism's sake. Facing plummeting stock markets, bursting housing bubbles, waves of unemployment, states teetering on the brink of bankruptcy and the global economy tumbling into...
Global cooling
Private equity activity right now is frozen, with very little new deal activity taking place. When asked, investors mention they are taking their time to analyse possible targets and see how business plans match up to constantly evolving trading conditions,...
Fair value in distress
There are two major themes on everyone's radar right now: Firstly, even the pessimists trust that 2009 and 2010 will be good vintages. Secondly, until LPs receive year-end numbers and can assess their portfolio exposure, few new commitments will be made....
Size isn't everything
"My next fund will be the same size as my current one," said one mega buyout fund manager, chatting off-the-record to your editor at a recent event
The End of Optimism
When I worked in Oslo my boss was a polar explorer (before hedge funds started doing it as team building), a collector of contemporary art and a book publisher. Whenever we raised concerns about forecasted book sales, he would always reply: "You have...
After the freeze
Last week's snowstorm brought the country to a standstill. Public transport came to a halt; workers were snowed in at home or worse - made it in and then found themselves marooned at the office. Few things were moving; none were working well
Kick off 2009
With deal flow having been effectively reduced to a slow trickle by the end of 2008, it's 2009's turn to stutter it into life. CDC Capital Investissement (CDC CI) signed off on the first and only LBO of the year so far with the purchase of a majority...
Don't look down
Reading the finance section in the newspaper these days is like experiencing a day of London weather: chilly, windy morning followed by overcast midday before the rain kicks in during the evening. It is all over the place, as are the banks' shares in...
A Darwinian time
Reports on the financial markets and global economy currently feel like a succession of bad news stories, and as 2009 rolls on this trend looks set to continue. This year also marks the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth. The timing could not...
Haste makes waste
The current market conditons mean a lot of companies will fold. Many are unsurprising - when was the last time you shopped in Woolworths (excluding Pick-n-Mix)? In fact, Standard & Poor's estimates that up to 75 European businesses from its speculative...
Swings and roundabouts
The end of 2008 was a frosty one, particularly on the leveraged buyout front. According to figures from unquote" proprietary database Private Equity Insight, Q4 saw a considerable drop in the number and value of deals vis-a-vis Q3 (see graph 2, cover)....
The year of the portfolio
The numbers are in for 2008 and the picture is bleak across Europe. Only countries such as Italy or Portugal posed (small) exceptions to the overall trend. Remembering the beginning of 2008, when the effects of the credit crunch had already taken hold...