DealZone

First Reserve is sitting on another $9 billion of spending money for energy deals after finishing raising its latest buyout fund, Fund XII. The private equity giant, which specialises in energy investments, said the fund is the largest ever raised in the energy sector and exceeds its previous fund, Fund XI, which raised $7.8 billion in 2006. 

The fund appears to be lower than target, however. London-based private equity intelligence firm Preqin said in a recent report that the fund had a $12 billion target.

“Energy remains a large, dynamic and complex industry where change creates new, attractive investment opportunities,” said William Macaulay, Chief Executive Officer of First Reserve in the press release (below).

Private equity firms have been struggling to raise new money for funds as the pension and endowment funds that invest in them have been hit by slides in the equity markets.

Some sectors and funds have been more successful than others. Secondary firms, which typically buy investors’ positions in buyout funds at a discount, have been particularly successful at raising capital.

Poor Dow Chemical.

Not only did the company end up having to buy Rohm and Haas at basically the same steep price it agreed to last year, but it has also become the favorite target of lawyers, bankers and maybe even judges at the Tulane Corporate Law Institute, an annual gathering of top dealmakers.

Timothy Ingrassia, head of Goldman Sachs mergers and acquisitions business in the Americas struck the first blow on Thursday morning.

 ”You’ve already had Dow Chemical’s unique interpretation of the merger agreement. There was never a transaction that made Apollo look better,” Ingrassia said, referring to private equity firm Apollo’s previous efforts to get out of an agreement to buy Huntsman Corp. 

Lawyers for Dow Chemical Co and Rohm and Haas faced off on Wednesday over whether Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz should be disqualified as Rohm’s lawyers because the firm had once represented Dow.

The arguments mostly focused on the issues of whether Dow could be considered a current client of Wachtell, whether Wachtell should have informed Dow that it had taken on Rohm and Haas as a client, and whether Dow should have objected to Wachtell representing Dow before litigation had commenced. But the arguments did stray at a few points into the merits of the case.

At one moment, Chancellor William Chandler, the judge hearing the case, asked Dow lawyer David Bernick, a partner at law firm Kirkland & Ellis, about the company’s defense in the case.

It doesn’t look like 2009 is going to be a happy new year for the chemicals sector.

LyondellBasell Industries, the world’s third-largest independent chemicals company, has told lenders it is considering filing for bankruptcy protection amid plunging sales and a cash crunch, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.

The company is one of several in the sector facing one of the worst slumps ever in chemical demand. The industry has been battered by high price tags on crude oil and natural gas, which are key components of plastics and other chemicals.  Energy prices have plunged in recent months, but demand has also been hurt by recessions in most developed countries and a sharp slowdown in emerging economies.