Week in Review: Harvard, GPs, and No PE

Could you live without private equity? Becky Pritchard, a reporter at Private Equity News, answered the question this week when she tried (successfully) to avoid any PE-affiliated products and services.

As she explained in her concluding article, “It’s been a real eye opener for me as I’ve come to understand just how entwined in all our lives private equity is.” Pritchard had to give up nearly all of her normal practices — emphasizing the true ubiquity of private equity.

In other news, LPs are struggling to find information on GPs, large fines may not be the fix for Wall Street, and CapX Partners provided a loan to R.R. Street.

Opinions:

• Why Yale, Harvard, and sovereign funds are changing views on alternative assets
• Goldman winding down investments to comply with Volcker Rule
• LPs struggle to find GP information
• Bankers will walk away from the IPO boom smiling — even if investors don’t
• Base salaries at PE firms remain flat between 2012 and 2013
• Industry culture and the private equity gender gap
• Why large fines are the wrong fix for Wall Street reform
• Rethinking how private equity firms operate

Transactions:

• CapX Partners provides $2.8 million loan to R.R. Street
• Beringea’s Espresso Group sold to Discovery Communications
• Abacus Finance leads Hubbardton Forge debt financing
• Tyco acquires Westfire
• Liberty Hall buys Precise Machining & Manufacturing
• Arthur J. Gallagher completes acquisition of Giles Group of Companies
• Under Armour to acquire MapMyFitness
• Sterling Partners pays $109 million for Innotrac

Member Spotlight:

Pillsman Partners LLC, a Greenwich, CT-based private investment firm, has advised Wembly Acquisition LLC on its acquisition of Nylon Corporation of America, Inc. Pillsman will play an ongoing advisory role to Wembly and help assist in NYCOA’s continued growth going forward. Read the full announcement here.

Led by Chris Eichmann and Edwin Burke, Pillsman Partners LLC focuses on lower middle market business primarily in the Chemicals, Materials, Manufacturing, and Business Services markets with cash flows between $1 and $10 million. The firm joined Axial in 2011.

Connect with Pillsman Partners or any of the other 14,000+ Axial Members.