peHUB’s Dan Primack will be covering the KKR Private Equity Investors Q2 earnings call live at 1 pm ET.
KKR next buyout fund likely 2010
KKR’s next buyout fund will be a 2010 event, sources told us and peHUB – unless the market collapses again… While KKR hasn’t committed to a timeline or even started raising the fund (no documents are out), there had been an expectation it would start raising in 2009. (Private equity research group Preqin published this table in June (flip to page 13) of the funds they’re following as “on the road”. )
However, KKR still has a sizeable chunk of its existing funds to spend (known as dry powder) – it finished raising a $17.6 billion to spend on buyouts in 2008.
Fundraising is a tough place to be right now. Blackstone is continuing to chip away raising for BCP VI, its sixth buyout fund, which according to Preqin has a $15 billion target.
peHUB: Steve Rattner buys $4 million house before leaving DC
When Steve Rattner stepped down as auto czar earlier this week, Tim Geithner said the following: “Steven Rattner, whose leadership and vision were invaluable to the Auto Task Force’s efforts, has decided to transition back to private life and his family in New York City.”
Almost sounds as if he’d been just renting in DC, and that the Big Apple itch became unbearable. Except…
We’ve learned that Rattner bought a $4.35 million home in Washington D.C. just two months ago. Now why would you spend that much money – including more than $1 million up-front – if you weren’t planning a long-term stay?
E Ink sale not much of a VC payday
The privately held company was purchased by Taiwanese display maker Prime View International on Monday for $215 million, 12 years after it emerged from a Massachusetts Institute of Technology laboratory.
peHUB notes that the decade-plus span is far from ideal for VCs (the ideal horizon is five to seven years). Even worse, VCs including Intel Capital, Motorola Ventures, Solstice Capital, the McClatchy Company, Lucent Technologies, FA Technology Ventures, and the Hearst Corporation sunk some $148.8 million into E Ink over the years, for an underwhelming 1.4 multiple.
Pay-to-play funds scandal: Time for a change
Dan Primack is the editor of peHUB, a Thomson Reuters publication.
The New York State Pension Fund kickback scandal is making new headlines. The Wall Street Journal reported that Steven Rattner, the head of the Obama administratino’s auto task force, was one of the executives involved with payments that are under scrutiny, citing a person familiar with the matter.
On Thursday, New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo filed a criminal complaint against Raymond Harding, former chair of New York’s Liberal Party, for scheming with the already-indicted David Loglisci and Hank Morris. Cuomo also coaxed a guilty plea and financial remuneration out of Barrett Wissman, a crooked former hedge fund manager.
All of this got me to thinking more about the issue of raising fund capital from public pension systems, a process that often is just begging to be corrupted. Inexperienced and smaller general partners (GPs) can have real difficulty getting in front of a pension system’s investment staff, because there is rarely a transparent or streamlined process.
from Entrepreneurial:
VC fundraising still in the doldrums
Forty U.S.-based venture capital firms raised just $4.3 billion in the first quarter of 2009, according to data released this morning by Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association. The downside is that this represents the lowest number of funds to raise capital since Q3 2003. The upside is that the actual amount of capital raised was higher than the $3.5 billion raised in Q4 2008 (slight solace, but solace nonetheless).
Just three of the funds were first-timers, while the largest raiser was August Capital ($650m for Fund V).
In a prepared statement, NVCA president Mark Heesen said: “First, the majority of venture firms are not actively fundraising at this time because they have either recently raised a fund and are investing those dollars or are waiting until market conditions improve. Second, despite the recession, venture firms with solid track records continue to be able to secure sizable commitments from limited partners as there remains a great deal of promise for future returns from the venture capital asset class.”
