A beluga whale was found last week in the Arctic Ocean off the northern Norwegian coast. Otherwise not an unusual event, but this particular cetacean wore a harness. Its proximity to Russia sparked rumors the animal had been recruited as a spy. Another theory, however, soon surfaced. Some surmised “Hvaldimir” was an escapee from a…
“There are two times in your life when you shouldn’t speculate: when you can’t afford to, and when you can.” – Mark Twain Intergrowth 2019 this week in Orlando came at a propitious time, at least as far as our lender survey on valuations goes. One long-time NYC-based middle market practitioner weighed in with a…
“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” –T.S. Eliot So far in our special series on valuations we’ve reviewed key variables that impact equity valuations, and the strategies private equity has used to address them. We’ve also shared sponsors’ perspectives on challenges of higher purchase…
“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” –Voltaire The story of value is the story of private equity. How these firms have grown businesses and sold them for superior shareholder returns is about value creation. The paths to creating value and achieving these returns differ for each sponsor. As we discussed last…
“The value of a thing sometimes lies not in what one attains with it, but in what one pays for it – what it costs us.” – Friedrich Nietzsche In last week’s installment of our continuing special series, we discussed how critical time is to driving value. This week we take a deeper look at…
“Time is the longest distance between two places.” – Tennessee Williams One of the most important variables impacting valuations is how much time sponsors have to effect strategies to improve company performance. According to Preqin, the hold period for private equity GPs worldwide was 4.5 years last year – down from 5.9 in 2014. The…
“Anything that just costs money is cheap.” – John Steinbeck At the PartnerConnect conference in Boston last week, three panelists (including your correspondent) held forth on trends in middle market sponsor finance. One audience question caught our attention: “Given the current market, does the level of valuations concern you?” Of course, it depends what side…
There comes a time when traditional means of communication fail. When other tools must be employed. According to Tuesday’s WSJ, graduates at the University of Glasgow are using haiku to summarize their complex planetary and lunar projects. These 17-syllable science-related poems, nicknamed “sciku,” make extremely technical topics “more accessible.” Given today’s challenging interplay of elements…
If nothing else, the history of leveraged lending since the credit crisis shows both regulators and regulated entities have worked to shift loans off bank balance sheets. The object of Leveraged Lending Guidance, in turn, was not to eliminate credit risk, but limit the most aggressive bank lending practices – for example, leverage over six times…
What’s in a name? A lot, apparently, if it’s the name of a very large number. According to a WSJ piece last week, as the world of big data grows, so does the problem of keeping track of it. In a decade or so, the amount of information will exceed 1 yottabytes. That’s 1 with…