Fund Management

What is my portfolio worth? Valuation guidelines remain a big topic for every LP and GP active in the asset class. As private equity investments by both venture capital and buyout funds grow increasingly complex and spread across borders, the necessary uniformity in valuation practices is becoming more of a reality, say Colin Blaydon and Fred Wainwright of the Center for Private Equity and Entrepreneurship at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

The return of strategic buyers in the US is giving a long-awaited boost to exit opportunities for private equity firms. Conditions for exiting appear particularly compelling for smaller portfolio companies.William Kan, CFA and Georgiana Fung, strategists with Merrill Lynch Small Cap Research, dissect the changes that newly acquisitive corporations have brought to the US private equity landscape

The two firms are equally partnering with company management to acquire technology services company BBNT Solutions, the creator of the first network e-mail, from Verizon.

New Enterprise Associates enjoys success with SMIC IPO

A recent ILPA meeting focused on the secondary market and the allure of liquidity

Techno Venture Management, the German-US venture capital firm, has promoted Stephen Hoffman to general partner and Josef Moosholzer to venture partner.

Sterling Capital Partners is backing the nationwide expansion of Florida Coastal School of Law, a for-profit law school.

Onex Partners, the $1bn-plus private equity fund controlled by Canadian conglomerate Onex Corporation, has completed its first investment, taking a 24 percent stake in US healthcare group Magellan in a $100m deal.

… the tough get data. Private equity firms churn through massive amounts of proprietary and third-party performance data, and the demand for more statistics is increasing. While GPs and LPs can agree over the quality and accuracy of these numbers, their manipulation raises questions, writes Art Janik

The maturation of the private equity market is creating a new class of investors who are faced with a luxury of choices: in-house versus outsourced investment staff; separate accounts vs. funds of funds, set menus versus ‘Chinese menus.’ Be careful what you order. David Snow reports