Lower Middle Market Weekly Outlook

Good morning, all. What a game yesterday.

Many young PE professionals have seized the favorable environments in 2014 and 2015 to pioneer new firms. This does not please Steve Schwarzman. As he said in a conference over the weekend, “The biggest mistakes I’ve seen people make in their careers is, when they’re good, after two or three years…they announce that they’re going out to start their own firm.” This is interesting advice from a man who went off his own at 37 to create Blackstone.

In other news, Mitt Romney is not running for president and Yahoo may become a takeover target after Alibaba spinoff.

Transactions:

• Main Street invests in Volusion
• Cronus Partners advised 121 Point Breeze Terminal in its sale to Kinder Morgan
• Dentons to merge with Dacheng to create world’s largest law firm
• Meredith to acquire Shape brand
• NXT Capital closes $800 million leveraged loan fund
• Castanea Partners invests in Thymes
• IntraHealth International acquires Switchboard
• Phatisa invests in General Plastics
• Bain Capital to buy TI Automotive
• Brookside Mezzanine Partners invests in SummitReheis
• Kitara Media Corp. merges with Future Ads
• Lone Star Funds to buy Jurys Inn
• enVision Capital invests in KB Enterprises
• Abacus Finance supports WestView Capital’s investment in The Mintz Group
• Partners Group completes Dynacast acquisition
• Beamonte invests in Venture Academy

Events:

• Tuesday: Axial’s New York Winter Summit 2015
• Thursday: Roundtable on Structuring the Sale of a Business
• Thursday: ACG’s Atlanta Capital Connection

Opinions:

• How Shake Shack’s IPO stacks up to other hot restaurant debuts
• M&A deals gravitate to internet of things
• Merger of packaging makers can face cultural challenges
• 83% of mergers fail — leverage a 100-day valuation acceleration plan for success
• Middle market M&A innovation: The PE-ESOP hybrid
• Will lenders find a silver lining to the oil slide?
• PE execs more cautious about deal flow this year
• PE drills into crisis playbook for new energy deals
• Super rich families take on risk to delight of investment bankers
• Private equity soared in China last year
• African PE: A closer look at Africa’s PE market
• Leveraged lending guidance curbs PE purchasing power
• 4 issues reshaping the relationship between LPs and GPs
• US poised to ride emerging markets growth
• Fed moves to ease mergers of small banks
• 5 predictions for the PE secondaries market in 2015

This week in history… The  Bank of the United States closes (1841).