Fundraising

New Enterprise Associates enjoys success with SMIC IPO

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

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 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

Personal networks, relationships and access to the right people at the right time are essential no matter where in the world private equity transactions are being pursued. But private equity investors and their financiers, familiar with the whole of Europe's commercial fabric, say there are few countries where being part of the country's inner circle is more important than Italy. It's not as if the country can't deliver exceptional deals when the ingredients are right: witness the ‡5.65 billion buyout in June last year of Seat Pagine Gialle ? Europe's biggest buyout ever and recently voted by our readers as the 2003 European Buyout of the Year. So how does private equity work in Italy? Philip Borel asks Gianfilippo Cuneo, someone who can talk about private equity Italian style with insider's knowledge, to share his views.

Scandinavian buyout firm Altor Equity Partners has made two investments from its debut fund, which closed on E650m earlier in the year.

The French unit of Italian private equity firm 21 Investimenti is close to announcing a final close of its second expansion capital fund.

When PEI sat down with five seasoned leveraged finance professionals in London recently, it became clear that although business is good, they were keen to tread carefully in today's market. There also seemed to be a growing sense that the dynamic between sponsor and finance provider has changed – to the sponsors' advantage. We talked to them about the issues behind this shift and heard why getting it right matters all the more today.

In the late 1990s, the bottom dropped out of the European high yield market, not least because of problems in the cable sector. Now high yield is coming back, and its appetite for cable is recovering as well.

UK pension funds are big, numerous and most are looking for the kind of superior returns that can be delivered by alternative asset classes such as private equity. Shouldn't there be more of them investing greater percentages of their capital in such alternatives therefore? Philip Borel looks at the reasons why this hasn't been happening and asks: are the fund trustees to blame?