Steve Bills
Buyout shops took advantage of low interest rates and eager lenders in 2013, scoring a record $14 billion of dividend recapitalizations in the middle market, sister service Thomson Reuters Loan Pricing Corp reported.
Coming out of the Great Recession in 2009, with a fresh $1.5 billion fund to work with, the housing market looked attractive to Charlesbank Capital Partners LLC, a Boston-based buyout shop that in 1998 spun out of Harvard Management Company.
A growing number of buyout shops are adopting dedicated financial management technology to manage various aspects of their operations. A key reason, says Denise Valentine, an analyst at the research firm Aite Group LLC of Boston, has less to do with the Dodd-Frank financial reform law or their role as registered investment advisers and more to do with institutional credibility.
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co announced Thursday that it had closed its first fund dedicated to distressed assets, market dislocations, and other complex situations.
Great Hill Partners has raised nearly $494 million for its fifth buyout fund, according to a regulatory filing. Boston-based Great Hill Partners, which focused on growth companies, has attracted 54 investors to Great Hill Equity Partners V LP, the filing showed.
Falconhead Capital LLC has scored a 3x return on its its invested capital in its exit from NYDJ Apparel LLC, a deal that closed on Monday, according to a person familiar with the transaction.
A single cash infusion has brought fund-of-funds manager Abbott Capital Management LLC halfway to its goal for its third dedicated buyout fund.
Maranon Capital LP continues to recharge its lending capacity. The Chicago leveraged lender has closed on $107.5 million for it sophomore mezzanine fund, according to regulatory filings, two months after the firm raised $330 million for its second senior credit fund.
Distressed debt and aviation finance investor Castlelake LP, which separated itself in August from long-time buyout affiliate TPG Capital, has topped the $500 million mark for its first fund as an independent investment shop, according to a regulatory filing.
Buyout pros have felt like political punching bags in the wake of the financial crisis, with legislators and regulators imposing unprecedented new obligations, but as the clock winds down on 2013, a series of votes in Congress and at the Securities and Exchange Commission are giving the industry some encouragement that 2014 may be a better year.