Middle Market Weekly Outlook

Good morning, all. A Wall Street Journal article out last week explores the current buyout trend in private equity. They discuss the particular interest in private-equity-owned telecommunications and healthcare companies, with commentary on why holding periods are decreasing in comparison to 2014.

Meanwhile, Forbes reports on investment professional access to single-family offices. In an insight piece by a Forbes contributor, best practices for constructing a strong market position with these firms are discussed in detail.

Transactions

• GI Partners acquires MRI Software
• Spectrium backs Jimdo
• BC Partners funds Pharmathen
• Tritium Partners invests in OneRoad
• Francisco Partners invests in ShoreGroup
• CD&R to buy Motor Fuel Group
• J.C. Flowers to buy AmeriLife
• General Atlantic backs Too Faced Economics
• AE Industrial Partners to buy Belcan
• Golub Capital to refi Whitcraft

Opinions

• Dodd-Frank law comes under fire from private equity executives
• SEC Official: PE needs to be more transparent about co-investments
• Investors continue to navigate frothy market and high multiples
• Investing in a greater good…without sacrificing returns
• Attention dealmakers: close deals while you still can
• How investment professionals can access single-family offices
• Smaller private equity firms can deliver alpha, says Guy Hands
• For China’s private equity, the risk of selling too early
• 5 factors accelerating the consolidation wave
• Future looks bright for home healthcare companies
• US deal-making hits $243 billion monthly record
• Graduating into the family business
• The good and bad of investing in a family business
• After the M&A boom: now comes the hard part
• Here’s why the M&A wave is going to sink stocks
• Rewarding risk: why private equity needs to venture beyond BRICS
• For energy entrepreneurs, the pattern is start up, sell, repeat
• Do buyout kings need M.B.A.s
• Buyout firms cash out at the exit

This week in history…Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. inks a $2 billion deal to merge the magazine with Tele-Communications Inc. (1998).