Eric Mason heads up The Carlyle Group's leveraged finance division for Asia, a new initiative for the Washington-based private equity group which also runs debt investment teams in Europe and the US. Mason joined Carlyle in June, just before the beginning of the US subprime crisis. Before Carlyle, Mason was managing director and co-head of JP Morgan Syndicated & Leveraged Finance Asia Pacific.
Private equity vehicles and sovereign wealth funds from the Middle East are making headlines - and worrying politicians - with high-profile direct investments in Western markets, writes Rob Kotecki.
The subprime meltdown is threatening to prevent the LBO model from gaining further ground in Asia. But not everyone involved in Asian private equity has succumbed to pessimism yet, finds Sharon Lim.
Leading Japanese private equity group Advantage Partners is making a $2 billion foray into hedge fund management.
Nicholas Lockley, editor of PrivateEquityOnline.com, looks behind the headlines of the last four weeks on the web.
When the banks underwriting Cerberus' $7.4 billion ( e5.4 billion) acquisition of Chrysler and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts' £11.1 billion ( e16.3 billion; $22.3 billion) acquisition of Alliance Boots found themselves unable to syndicate several billion dollars of debt, it was a sure sign that sub-prime mortgage turmoil had begun to impact the leveraged buyout market substantially. At the end of August, analysts reported that banks were still waiting to offload $330 billion of debt from agreed deals, and some predicted there would be no more mega-buyouts struck this year, and possibly well into 2008. PEI talked with William Allen, founder of London-based leveraged debt advisor Blenheim Advisors, to get his views on the implications of the credit crunch.
Sweden's smaller deal market is hoping to stay immune from the contagion sweeping the LBO market. Andy Thomson reports.
Switzerland's LP are not the type to panic in the face of credit market turmoil, writes James Taylor. And on p. 85, Toby Lewis reports on current trends in the Swiss buyout market.
SEIZING THE MOMENT 2007-10-01 Staff Writer For a man who describes himself as “a natural bear”, Jon Moulton is remarkably bullish about his firm's prospects for the coming months – despite the recent volatility in global debt and equity markets.<br> <br> Although he is unwilling to call the top
Ten years ago, some of the largest firms got creative when debt became scarce – with disastrous results.