One intriguing remark that Blackstone COO Tony James let slip on today’s earnings call is that it could be gearing up to sell an energy asset. 
James explained that while opportunities to exit investments weren’t numerous, it had succeeded making a profit on the sale of pharmaceutical company Stiefel. 
“We have another company in our portfolio… in the energy sector, which had some very, very exciting results finding unbelievable amounts of hydrocarbons and… that might be something we’d look to exit,” James said on a call to the media. 
He didn’t identify the company so we’re doing the guessing ourselves — out of the current energy investments Blackstone lists on its website, we reckon Kosmos Energy, which has a significant oil field in Ghana, could fit the bill.

(Additional reporting by Mike Erman)

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.

Fund XII Final

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. 

“Dow did make a great point which is it was inconvienient to need to close that deal. I guess that was their legal argument,” he said.

Theodore Mirvis, a partner at the law firm that represented Rohm and Haas in the case, was later met with laughter when he presented a “hypothetical” case based on the Dow deal.

And Delaware Vice Chancellor Leo Strine may have been making a veiled reference to Dow, observing that litigating to get out of a deal puts a buyer in the not enviable position of arguing that your business is in bad shape.

“From the buyer’s side, the litigation is about how badly you suck,” he said.

Fresh from having Yahoo slip through its fingers, Microsoft’s plan to leapfrog into Consumerville takes another hit with news that Nokia is paying 264 million euros ($410 million) to buy out other shareholders of Symbian, the dominant player in smartphone software. Nokia says it will dissolve royalty payments for the platform, making it more attractive when compared to Google’s rival free platform, Android. Symbian’s operating systemis already used in two-thirds of smartphones; Nokia makes 40 percent of all phones sold globally. “This puts a lot of pressure on Microsoft right at a time when they are trying to really push into the consumer space,” said Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi. “For operators this offers a good alternative to Android.”

British gas producer BG Group launched a hostile $13.1 billion bid for Australia’s Origin Energy, as it seeks to boost its position in Asia-Pacific’s fast-growing gas market. BG is taking its A$13.8 billion all-cash bid, valuing Origin at A$15.50 a share, direct to shareholders after Origin’s board rejected it last month. Origin claimed then that its coal seam gas reserves alone were worth over $15 billion. Shares in Origin, which have surged over 85 percent this year, rose 6.2 percent to a record A$16.48 before closing up 5.8 percent at A$16.42, indicating investors expect an even higher offer. If successful, the deal would be the second-largest foreign takeover of an Australian company after Cemex, North America’s largest cement producer, bought Rinker Group last year for $14.2 billion.

Russian oil major Lukoil bought a 49 percent stake in Italian refiner ERG SpA’s Mediterranean plant for 1.35 billion euros ($2.1 billion), in a sign of the growing energy ties between Russia and Italy. Lukoil and ERG, Italy’s second-biggest refiner by market share, agreed a joint venture valued at 2.75 billion euros to control ERG’s Isab di Priolo refinery on Sicily. ERG will have 51 percent of the new company.

Other deals of the day:

* UBS said it had acquired Dutch wealth manager VermogensGroep.

* French aero engine and telecoms maker Safran said it had bought Dutch-based passport and secure ID document maker Sdu-Identifaction.

* Shares in China Oilfield Services, an arm of the CNOOC, jumped more than 3 percent as speculation grew about a potential takeover of Norwegian offshore driller Awilco Offshore.

* South Korean food group Dongwon said it will buy canned tuna company StarKist from Del Monte Foods for about $300 million, in the latest push by South Korean food makers for global expansion.

* Australian zinc and lead miner Perilya rejected as inadequate a takeover proposal from CBH Resources, both companies said, but Perilya left the door open to further talks.

* Flowers Foods, which produces baked goods, said it agreed to acquire Holsum Bakery in a cash and stock deal.

* Italy’s Banca Popolare dell’Emilia Romagna will launch a buyout offer for the 71.8 percent of its Meliorbanca unit it does not already own at 3.2 euros per share, BPER said.

* Hospital operator Tenet Healthcare said it will sell its interest in health care services company Broadlane Inc to TowerBrook Capital Partners for proceeds of about $155 million.

* Occidental Petroleum said it is buying a stake in a major Canadian oil sands project for C$500 million ($492 million), giving it a foothold in one of the world’s biggest developing oil plays as crude prices surge.

* Digimarc, a provider of secure identity technology, said it is spinning off its digital watermarking business as part of a deal with L-1 Identity Solutions, a photo and fingerprint identity equipment maker.