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Private Equity Briefcase

By Kelly Holman, IDD Magazine

January 20, 2009

Deal Pros Remain Active

As the New Year kicked off, the credit marts remained frozen and business seller expectations high.

The ingredients needed to construct a successful transaction are still largely absent. It almost makes one want to throw in the towel, but thankfully the investment bankers and private equity executives that make up the ranks of the deal community aren’t following the example set by legendary boxer Oscar de la Hoya in his bid to unseat Philippine pugilist Manny "Pac-Man" Pacquiao last month. After being battered by the southpaw for eight rounds, de la Hoya gave up and refused to step back into the ring in the ninth round.

Boxing fans, to say the least, weren’t thrilled.

For bankers and buyout executives, the debt market conundrum, lofty company seller valuations and recession are the equivalent of the blows thrown by a top-rated boxer. What rationale can there be for hitting the road, visiting clients or trying to structure a transaction when so much resistance is being thrown your way?

But, that’s exactly what the mid-sized players have been doing since the M&A market locked up in the fall. Rolling with the punches, it turns out, has paid off for the investment banks and buyout firms that have continued to ply the middle market. Harris Williams & Co., Lincoln International, Watch Hill Partners, Wells Fargo and William Blair & Co. are continuing to seal deals on the banking side, while Arbor Investments, Darby Overseas Investments, Vector Capital and Warburg Pincus have also executed recent private equity deals.

The aforementioned isn’t meant to be an advertorial for the banks and private equity firms mentioned, nor meant to exclude a host of other active market participants. Heck, just about every buyout executive and investment banking executive I speak with these days say they’re busier than ever despite the depressed state of the credit markets and economy.

It’s meant to say that some participants in the deal market are doing more than just hanging on the ropes; some are still reaping fees and deploying capital despite the dislocation in the capital markets.

Why?

They’re stepping into the ring.

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Index of Posts

2 Comments

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Posted by: folcklord f | July 21, 2010 5:17 AM

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Posted by: folcklord f | July 20, 2010 8:24 PM

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Kelly Holman

Kelly Holman is the assistant managing editor at Investment Dealers' Digest, where he writes about private equity and leveraged finance. Prior to joining IDD, he reported on leveraged buyout transactions, private equity fundraising activity, corporate auctions, the middle market and credit markets as a senior writer for The Deal. Before joining The Deal in 2000, Holman was a reporter for PRWeek magazine, where he reported on financial services PR and investor relation activities, as well as international PR developments. He also assisted with Haymarket Media Group's US launch of the public relations trade magazine. Previous to PRWeek, Holman wrote about private equity for Private Equity Week and Buyouts and served as a contributor to IDD in the late 1990's. A Colorado transplant, Holman has called New York home for more than a decade. He received his B.A. in Mass Communications from the University of Colorado at Denver..

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