By any measure, this is the private equity era. Buyout firms' share of U.S. merger activity rose from 2.8% in 2000 to 28% last year. At the same time, buyout firms' quarry have become larger and larger. Not long ago, a $3 billion LBO was big. Today that's peanuts with KKR and TPG bidding $45 billion for TXU, Blackstone gobbling up Equity Office Properties for $39 billion, and a slew of other $10 billion-plus announced or completed.
With billions of equity at their disposal, and banks eager to lend for LBOs, sponsors have been making irresistible offers to public companies. The result has been a mass exodus from the public markets. In just the first three and half months of this year, 28 companies with a combined enterprise value of $121 billion have agreed to sell out to private equity buyers.
Meanwhile, Fortress Group has gone public at an astonishing multiple and Blackstone has filed for its IPO, giving the public a rare glance inside two of the most successful shops.
The Deal's Private Capital conference April 23 and 24 will look at the business from many angles—from the market at large, to the ins and outs of executing take-privates, to the quest for public capital, and the changing expectations of limited partners in this frenzy of fundraising and investing.
Featured speakers will include Glenn Hutchins, co-founder of tech buyout pioneer Silver Lake Partners, Scott Sperling, co-president of Thomas H. Lee Partners and Douglas Lowenstein, the head of the new Private Equity Council.—John Morris
See PC Symposium Web site
See story about Fortress IPO from TheDeal.com
See story about Lowenstein from TheDeal.com
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