Middle Market Weekly Outlook

Last week, major PE players gathered in Berlin for the annual SuperReturn Conference.  Topics of the conference included: why private equity will become more private again,  how the pipeline for deals is “huge,” and how — despite $1 trillion in dry powder — PE firms are shying away from risky deals.

In other news, Warren Buffett published his annual letter on Saturday. Embedded in the letter was a surprising denigration of investment bankers, during which he accuses them of being too focused on drumming up business for the sake of business.

Transactions:

• Panorama Point Partners buys Midwest Medical Transport
• Stifel to buy Sterne Agee for $150 million
• The Riverside Company backs Advanced InfoData Systems
• Shire acquires Meritage Pharma
• Northwest Equity invests in Old Hickory Smokehouse
• Sotera Wireless acquires Reflectance Medical
• Snow Phipps Group invests in Cascade Environmental Services
• Monroe Capital offers $27 million credit facility to The Sandbox Group
• Envestnet acquires Upside
• Brazos to sell Healthcare Solutions to Catamaran Corporation
• DealerSocket acquires FEX DMS
• Thoma Bravo picks up PowerPlan from JMI Equity and TPG Growth
• Solis Capital invests in ICOM North America
• Waud Capital invests in PSI Services
• Prospect Partners acquires Animal Emergency Specialty Center
• Strattam Capital buys majority stake in Trax Technologies
• Salveo Capital is fundraising for marijuana-specific debut fund

Opinions:

• Regulators on leveraged lending: A cheat sheet
• Blackstone considers a lower-return, longer-term approach to PE
• Buyout shops keep skin in the game
• Rubenstein’s ten predictions for the buyout industry
• The pipeline for deals is huge
• What PE buyers want in a business
• Flush with cash, PE faces $1 trillion headache
• Secondaries managers target energy sector
• Jim Coulter sees “titanic shifts” in PE industry
• PE leaders focus on returning money to investors
• New oil rush? PE starts to buy into energy assets
• Market trends in mid-market leveraged financing transactions
• How to become a private equity associate
• PE firms in a frenzied race to hire young investment bankers
• Should you cash out, like private equity?
• PE firms in Asia keep their powder dry
• Asset managers on track to overtake investment bankers on average in pay
• How two factors are changing capital markets
• Here’s how the private equity industry views energy
• Should stock market investors follow private equity’s lead?
• Royal Bank of Scotland to dismantle investment bank

This week in history… Washington Mutual acquires Great Western Financial Corp. for $6.6 billion (1997).