Filed under: Venture capital industry, Investments

PurePlay has announced the closing of Series C equity financing round for $15 million. The company claims to be the first and the largest on the web, legal non-gambling poker site with a record 1 million users and to-date has given away $3 million in cash prizes. The funding will allow PurePlay to increase marketing and expand infrastructure to handle the rapid growth.

Investors include Bay Partners, Ron Conway, James Joaquin, and other Silicon Valley investors. Ron Conway formerly headed Angel Investors LP and is currently an independent angel investor. He wrote “The Godfather of Silicon Valley” and, notably, he sits on the boards for Facebook, Plaxo, Anchor Intelligence, Associated Content and Zappos. He was also an initial investor in Google. James Joaquin funded When.com, presided over OFoto and Xoom and acts as a venture partner at Bridgescale Partners.

Maybe this company doesn’t even need the potential regulatory loosening up that has been proposed by Barney Frank.

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Filed under: The Blackstone Group, Raising money, The Carlyle Group, Madison Dearborn Partners, Engagements, Private equity industry

In a report (subscription required) out of the Dow Jones LBO Wire, Carlyle Group L.P. has delayed its deadline for the fund-raising efforts for its new Carlyle Partners V LP. The delay is said to have been moved to the end of the year for it to close on its fund raising efforts. Carlyle V’s original closing date was May 30, and it received investor consent to extend the final closing date to Dec. 31 at the very latest.

Fund V efforts started in 2007 and was said to have swiftly held an $8 billion first closing with a target of $15 billion and a hard cap of $17 billion.

Carlyle is not the first nor the only facing delays. The Blackstone Group L.P. (NYSE: BX) and Madison Dearborn Partners both delayed the closing of private equity funds earlier this year.

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Filed under: Raising money, Private equity industry, Investments

An interesting fund raise just shut this day in the global energy sector. Lime Rock is a private equity firm that focuses on the global energy sector, and it announced this day the closing of its fifth Lime Rock Partners fund, Lime Rock Partners V, L.P., with a total $1.4 billion in investor capital commitments.

Lime Rock has four predecessor Lime Rock Partners funds, and Lime Rock Partners V will make what it calls “creative, value-adding, and long-term growth capital investments” in companies in the global energy industry.

This notes that some 78 institutional investors participated in the fund, including leading endowments, foundations, and pension funds, made capital commitments to Lime Rock Partners V. It also states that it didn’t actively market this fund, as some 91% of capital commitments came from its existing investors.

Lime Rock Partners funds have invested $1.0 billion in 47 energy portfolio companies worldwide, which are primarily in the exploration & production, energy services, and oil service technology sectors. These funds have also realized some $1.7 billion and “continue to hold significant unrealized value in their portfolio company investments.”

Lime Rock also manages Lime Rock Resources, a $450 million fund, which directly acquires and operates oil and gas properties in the United States. Lime Rock manages $3.5 billion of private capital for investment in the energy industry.

More information on the company’s investment(s) portfolio can be found here.

Jon Ogg produces the Special Situation newsletter for 247WallSt.com.

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Filed under: Raising money, Engagements, Private equity industry, Investments, Public or private?

Capital Trust, Inc. (NYSE: CT) has formed a new fund to invest in invest in “high grade” commercial real estate debt. This will include investment grade securities such as CMBS, REIT debt, and CDOs, as well as whole loans and participations therein.

CT High Grade Partners II, LLC with $667 million of commitments from two institutional investors.

This fund will be managed by CT Investment Management Co., LLC, Capital Trust’s wholly-owned investment management subsidiary.

This is actually a limited time vehicle as well. CT High Grade Partners II has a one year investment period subject to extension by mutual agreement. Investments will be funded 100% with the investors’ capital utilizing no leverage and CTIMCO will earn a management fee equal to 0.40% per annum on invested assets.

Jon C. Ogg

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Filed under: Raising money, Private equity industry

Prospect Capital Corporation (NASDAQ: PSEC) has announced it will raise funds in a public offering of three million shares of common stock, and Prospect will grant the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 450,000 shares of its common stock to cover over-allotments from underwriters.

The private equity and mezzanine finance company said that it expects to use the net proceeds from this secondary offering to repay outstanding debt, to fund investments in portfolio companies, and for general corporate purposes.

Citi and Wachovia are the lead underwriters, and Oppenheimer, and RBC Capital Markets are listed the co-managers of this offering.

Continue reading at 247WallSt.com to hear about the implications and how this compares to the overall size of the company.

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Filed under: Management, Raising money, Engagements

We’ve been digging around for the the coming layoffs at private equity firms to get a good handle on just what the economic downturn and credit crunch will mean to all the B-School kids who wanted to be the next multi-millionaires and billionaires. While no hard numbers are out industry-wide yet (at least that you can hang your hat on), there are some things trickling out.

The Deal Journal, of the Wall Street Journal, noted in a post today that American Capital Strategies (NASDAQ: ACAS) plans to let go an unspecified number of staffers in middle markets. As you can see in the chart below, they have had their fair share of pain in the process.

Dan Primack, of Private Equity Hub, also wrote a piece noting that no one is getting hired in finance anymore, so he linked to an M&A article about “how to get fired.“

Our own Zac Bissonnette wrote here on BloggingBuyouts at the end of February about how M&A was down so much that dealmakers were set for big layoffs.

But here we are at the end of April and no major firings have come the way of dealmakers. Since they cannot all jump into “distressed mortgages and loans” and since they cannot all go to work for a SPAC immediately, it seems only a matter of time and that time is sooner rather than later.

The one thing you can bet on is that there won’t be press releases out of private equity firms. They are private for a reason, well most are still private. When the news does come out it’s probably safe to assume that the firms will say this is merely a reflection of the current conditions or something of the like. Just keep in mind that companies don’t fire waves or groups of workers if they think they will be needed in a few months time.

Who knows, maybe they will just announce worker furloughs through the end of summer.

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Filed under: Raising money, Texas Pacific Group, Private equity industry, Investments, Value and lack thereof

A new capital raise may have set a record, or at least close to it. Tygris Commercial Finance Group, Inc. has launched a new commercial finance company for middle markets transactions, and it says in the launch release that its funding is over $1.75 billion in equity commitments. Tygris says this is the largest initial capital raise ever in the U.S. commercial finance sector. Tygris will initially have offices in Chicago, Stamford, CT and Parsippany, NJ.

Tygris was founded by Aquiline Capital Partners LLC (”Aquiline”), a New York based private equity firm specializing in financial services, with New Mountain Capital, L.L.C. and TPG Capital joining as lead investors.

The company also claims to have established significant relationships with financial institutions including Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Barclays, Wachovia and Wells Fargo Foothill. With the backers and management team here on this, this seems like it is easily within the realm of contacts.

The Company initially will concentrate on developing leading franchise positions in three commercial finance businesses: middle market corporate finance, middle market equipment leasing and asset finance, and small ticket leasing.

Below is the management team, and unless I am missing something it looks like an impressive list of executives:

• Frederick E. “Rick” Wolfert, former Vice Chairman of Commercial Finance of the CIT Group and President of Heller Financial Inc., is the Company’s CEO.
• Steven F. Kluger, EVP, Capital Markets and Corporate Strategy; former President/CEO of GE Capital Markets.
• Stuart A. Armstrong, President of Corporate Finance; former President/CEO of Black Diamond Commercial Finance, former Senior Managing Director and Head of Corporate Lending’s vertical industry financing groups at GE Commercial Finance.
• Laird M. Boulden, President of Asset Finance (Chicago); former President/CEO of RBS Asset Finance, and President/co-founder of the Commercial Equipment Finance Group for Heller Financial Inc.
• Tim J. Eichenlaub, EVP, Chief Risk Officer; former Senior Managing Director and Group Head for CIT’s Sponsor Finance business.
• T. Doug Hollowell, EVP, General Counsel and Head of Depository Strategy; former Executive Director at Morgan Stanley Corporate Treasury, and General Counsel at Merrill Lynch Capital.

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Filed under: Venture capital industry, Investments

GodTube has reportedly received a $30 million investment from hedge fund GLG Partners, according to PaidContent. The news came on Sunday, unsurprisingly.

GodTube is a swiftly growing Christian on the internet video sharing and social networking website and previously received $2.5 million in funding, some from private investor Norm Miller of Interstate Batteries.

The site now has 2 million users per month and was launched less than a year ago in Dallas. CEO Chris Wyatt formerly acted as an executive producer at CBS.

While $30 million sounds like a big amount, the costs of broadband make it a normal investment for comparable video sharing sites. Recently, GLG invested in digital media companies Glam Media and Spinvox. This round of funding for GLG Partners is $150 million.

Also according to the article in PaidContent, GLG Partners and GodTube each declined comment on the rumored investment.

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Filed under: Investments

In one of the biggest technology-related IPOs this year, website and IT system hosting company Rackspace Inc. late Friday filed to raise up to $400 million on the NYSE.

The company previously sought to raise $42 million in an IPO in 2001, but withdrew it in the wake of the tech market meltdown. Rackspace reported 2007 profits of $18 million on net revenue of $362 million. In 2006, it earned $20 million on net revenues of $224 million.

The offering, which will be conducted via auction, would represent a rare IPO exit for a host of investors that have backed Rackspace during its eight-year history. Norwest Venture Partners owns 16.2% of the company, while Sequoia Capital owns 11.6%. Chairman and former CEO Graham Weston is the largest shareholder, with 23.9% of the company’s equity. Goldman, Sachs & Co., Credit Suisse, Merrill Lynch & Co. and W.R. Hambrecht & Co. are underwriting the offering.

Continue reading at TechConfidential.com.

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Filed under: Deals, Top deals, Engagements, Investments, Public or private?

Right after the close, Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) did actually confirm in a press release that the company was in advanced acquisition speaks with IT-sourcing giant Electronic Data Systems Corporation (NYSE: EDS). While it noted that there are no assurances that a deal will be reached, Wall Street took it in good stride.

As traders look to the news covering whether or not EDS will become part of H-P, traders were looking at how to get in the news. As a result, there are many other tech and IT-sourcing companies to look at that other potential players might take an interest in.

If we took the mid-point of the pricing at $12.5 Billion we would have a rough share price of $25.00 per share on EDS. At that rough price, you would have a company that analysts expect to be priced at 18.2 times DEC-2008 earnings and 0.55-times revenue estimates.

Read the full story of “Who Could Be Next” at 247WallSt.com to see which other stocks in IT-outsourcing stocks could be in play.

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