David Toll

Energy Capital Partners, which has raised more than $8 billion for investments in the North American energy market, plans to launch its third core fund later this year targeting in the neighborhood of $4.3 billion and offering an LP-friendly distribution waterfall, a source close to the fund told Buyouts. Expect a formal unveiling as early as this summer.

A new survey of limited partners shows that buyout professionals still have some work to do convincing them that they should be bullish on the asset class. But it also points to plenty of progress made on the promotional front—particularly in efforts to show investors that they’re hands-on, in a good way, with portfolio companies.

An old saying goes that if one person calls you a horse, you may or not be a horse. If two people call you a horse, buy a saddle. Buyout firms may want to go saddle-shopping now that a second academic study published this year finds that they inflate valuations during fundraising. “Some GPs of […]

It is a strange question to ask in an age when financial sponsors put so much emphasis on their operational talents and so little on their ability to generate returns through borrowing.

Over the last several years Buyouts has generated research demonstrating that funds of funds generate uninspired returns for investors—a lonely task that hasn’t won us many friends in the funds-of-funds business.

It is probably time to put to rest the question of whether, over nearly three decades, U.S. buyout shops have on average outperformed the public equity markets. They have.

Ben Sullivan is stepping down as managing director and co-head of the fund placement group at Lazard Ltd, and plans to leave the firm in mid-June, Buyouts has learned from sources. It was not immediately clear what he plans to do next or why he’s leaving.

The Carlyle Group may be best known for investments in Freescale Semiconductor, Hertz Corp. and other giant companies. But the firm has a financing arm that’s aimed decidedly at the middle market.

Everyone complains about the quality of private equity benchmarking. Now a trio of academics is doing something about it. One of the biggest challenges for existing benchmarks is adequately capturing volatility in the value of the underlying portfolio companies. Indices that are transaction-based, for example, suffer from a time lag, since they only get updated […]

Are buyout shops good for their portfolio companies? The debate won’t end in our lifetimes. But in the meantime a new academic paper finds that buyout firms provide their charges with at least one concrete benefit: lower borrowing costs.