Knowledge Centers

Some PE firms eye the Middle East

Eighty percent of the capital that private equity firm Blackstone Group LP invested last year was deployed in Asia, "and that's not an anomaly," says Kirkland & Ellis LLP partner Kirk Radke in The Deal magazine's special video series Globalization of Private Equity, sponsored by Merrill DataSite. All of the major private equity firms in the U.S. and Europe have been investing in Asia for a number of years, he points out. In the Middle East, most of the discussions  are about managing money and limited partner and strategic relationships, says Radke, "but there are opportunities in that region, which a few of the houses are actively considering." Senior writer David Marcus caught up with Radke at the recent International Bar Association's 10th Annual Mergers and Acquisitions Conference in New York. For more of Globalization of Private Equity, watch "PE right solution for Europe capital gap," our conversation with Jones Day partner Corinne Ball; "Consumer deals catch fire in Brazil," our chat with CMF Associates' Thomas Bonney; and "China & Brazil hot, but U.S. & Europe not cold," our interview with Debovoise & Plimpton LLP's Franci Blassberg. - Mary Kathleen Flynn