Top 5 Private Business & Investment Articles to Start the Week: Riverside Expects Year End Deal Surge

Top 5 Private Business & Investment Articles of the Week is a weekly series on the Axial blog which highlights the best articles from around the web on buying, selling, and building successful private businesses. We welcome your favorite articles to be submitted for consideration: [email protected]

1. Private Equity Firms Reap Big Fees, Report Says

A new report may provide additional momentum to calls for an overhaul of private equity fee structures:  the report commissioned by Financial News indicates that private equity firms have brought in over $10B in management fees since 1995, which would amount to over three quarters of total earnings.

2. Riverside Expects Year-End Deal Surge

Author: Bernard Vaughn

Bela Szigethy, founder and Co-CEO of Riverside Company, expects his company to close up to six new platform investments and put up to $200mm to work before the end of the calendar year.  Deal momentum will be driven, he predicts, by owners’ desire to achieve liquidity before tax increases in 2011.

3. Lion Capital Taps JPMorgan for $980mm Bumble Bee Buyout

Author: Emre Peker

London-based consumer goods buyout group Lion Capital is raising debt for its $980mm leveraged buyout of canned seafood giant Bumble Bee, which it is acquiring from New York-based Centre Partners Management.  The deal values the company at 7.5x EBITDA.

4. Mitigating Risk in Buyout Exits

Authors: Howard T. Spilko and Connie Y. Chiang

When either buyers or sellers are worried about the risk of post-acquisition financial fallout caused by inaccurate information pre-sale, representations and warranties insurance may be the answer.

5. KKR Attracting $2.5 Billion May Signal Buyout Fundraising Thaw

Authors: Jason Kelly and Cristina Alesci

Although KKR’s fundraising success may be a good sign for the industry, it’s less helpful for middle-market firms who aren’t KKR or Blackstone–especially as investment managers cut the number of private equity relationships that they maintain.