Equity Firms

Three U.S. congressional panels plan to examine private equity firms and hedge funds at hearings Wednesday, turning a spotlight on an industry that some lawmakers think should pay sharply higher taxes. The vast wealth amassed in recent years by private equity and hedge fund managers is drawing lawmakers' attention like never before, with the Senate Finance Committee set to look into raising taxes on managers' "carried interest" pay.

Top agents at International Creative Management on Wednesday completed the buyout of the agency from longtime Chairman and Chief Executive Jeff Berg and private equity firm Rizvi Traverse Management - ending a long-running management drama at one of Hollywood's leading agencies. Staff members of the 400-person firm celebrated with a champagne breakfast. Twenty-nine agents are now partners who will own and control the Century City-based firm, which has been renamed ICM Partners.

Private equity firms are considering a bid for Borders Group Inc., the Financial Times reported. A Borders spokeswoman said the book and music retailer does not comment on speculation. Texas Pacific Group, Bain Capital, Apollo Management and Leonard Green Partners are the buyout firms considering an offer, the newspaper said. The firms declined to comment.

SACRAMENTO — Federal securities regulators sued a former chief executive and a former director of the California Public Employees' Retirement System, accusing them of scheming to defraud an investment firm of $20 million. The Securities and Exchange Commission alleged that former CEO Federico Buenrostro Jr., 62, and former director Alfred J.R. Villalobos, 68, fabricated documents requested by Apollo Global Management, a New York private equity firm. Apollo had hired Villalobos, a close friend of Buenrostro, as a so-called placement agent to secure billions of dollars of investments from the country's largest public pension fund.

Linde, a German maker of industrial gases and machinery, sold its forklift division to private equity firms Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners for 3.6 billion euros ($4.59 billion), the company said. Kion Group is the umbrella company for three forklift truck and industrial equipment brands, Linde, Still and Om. It currently has more than 20,000 employees.

Two private equity firms appear to be front-runners in the quest to buy Chrysler Group, the troubled U.S. arm of DaimlerChrysler. Cerberus Capital Management and a consortium of investors headed by Blackstone Group and Centerbridge Partners spent much of last week at Chrysler's Auburn Hills, Mich., headquarters crunching numbers and meeting with top executives, a company official said Tuesday.

The California Public Employees' Retirement System is reviewing its relationship with private equity firm Apollo Management in the wake of steep losses on investments placed with the New York asset manager. The review began in May and is focused on reducing administrative and management fees, said Pat Macht, a spokeswoman for the Sacramento agency known as CalPERS, which manages $200 billion in retirement assets -- the country's largest pension fund -- on behalf of current and former state and municipal employees.

Automaker DaimlerChrysler is expected to announce as early as today that it is selling its troubled U.S. auto division -- home to the Jeep Cherokee, the Chrysler 300 and the Dodge Ram pickup -- to a New York private equity firm. Executives at the Stuttgart, Germany-based automaker on Sunday declined to confirm the sale of Chrysler Group, and talks were continuing.

A private equity firm led by former Goldman Sachs & Co. executives is the likely buyer of IndyMac Bank, according to a report published Friday. The winner of the bidding for the Pasadena thrift is New York-based Dune Capital Management, founded in 2004 by ex-Goldman partners Steven Mnuchin and Daniel Niedich, according to the report on the Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter website.

A group of private equity investors has offered to pay as much as $3.4 billion to buy shares of Delphi Corp. and could wind up owning as much as 72% of the auto parts maker in a deal that creates a framework for its emergence from bankruptcy protection, Delphi said Monday. The company -- which makes entertainment systems, chassis, electronics, air conditioning and other components of vehicles -- also said that its board had named President Rodney O'Neal to replace Chairman Robert S.

WASHINGTON — Trying to ward off a financial crisis like the one that shook the world in 2008, a powerful panel of federal regulators approved criteria for classifying which non-banking firms pose a risk to the entire financial system and are subject to tougher rules. The new financial regulations are aimed at large, previously unregulated insurance companies, such as bailed-out American International Group Inc., as well as hedge funds, private equity funds and other firms whose complicated securities and bad bets on mortgages created a credit crisis and helped deepen the recession.

A national ground beef processor owned by Los Angeles private equity firm Yucaipa Cos. and basketball Hall of Famer Magic Johnson filed a bankruptcy petition seeking protection from creditors, blaming, in part, bad publicity over products containing so-called pink slime. AFA Foods Inc. said it sought bankruptcy protection because it was "faced with an immediate and unanticipated liquidity crisis" and was unable to pay vendors last week without a loan, which banks refused to provide.

Technology firm Quest Software Inc. has agreed to go private in a deal valued at $2 billion. The Aliso Viejo software company said Friday that it had agreed to be acquired by private equity firm Insight Venture Partners for $23 a share in cash, a 19% premium over its closing price Thursday. The announcement led to a surge in Quest's stock price, with shares rising $4.67, or 24%, to close Friday at $24.07, as some investors bought on the prospects of a bidding war for the company.

A Los Angeles private equity firm wants to drive off with Manny, Moe and Jack. Pep Boys, the iconic auto parts retailer that is synonymous with California's car culture, said Monday that it has agreed to sell itself to Los Angeles-based Gores Group in a deal worth nearly $800 million. Gores Group is paying $15 a share, a 24% premium over Pep Boys' closing price of $12.08 on Friday. The stock jumped $2.85 on Monday to $14.93. The deal has a provision in which Pep Boys can solicit higher bids until mid-March.

It had to be done Re "How far is too far on Iran?," Editorial, Jan. 12 The editorial regarding the car-bomb killing of an Iranian nuclear scientist comes across as rather sanctimonious. All but assuming that Israel's hand was at play, the editorial condemns the action as somehow unfitting. The Iranian regime has said Israel should be destroyed. Such a move by Iran could only be accomplished through a nuclear attack on Israel, which probably motivates Iran's unrelenting effort to develop such weapons.

International Creative Management's leaders announced Friday a management buyout of the talent agency from private equity firm Rizvi Traverse Management, which acquired controlling interest six years ago. The high-stakes move is designed to give top agents at ICM, which represents such stars as Al Pacino, Jodie Foster and Ellen DeGeneres, a financial interest in the business and empower a younger generation, led by ICM's 43-year-old president, Chris...

As Hollywood gears up for an expected blockbuster summer season, two of the biggest movie theater chains are offering a rare double feature: themselves. In an initial public offering last week, exhibitor Cinemark Holdings Inc. sold shares worth $532 million. AMC Entertainment Inc. plans to launch an even bigger IPO this week, estimated at as much as $789 million.

The economy is soft and the credit markets are tight, but that hasn't stopped Triton Pacific Capital Partners from making deals. The Century City-based private equity firm is completing the purchase of two companies and is on the prowl for other acquisitions. "We're able to go and continue to find very attractive investment opportunities even in a constrained financing environment," said Craig Faggen, Triton's managing partner. At a time when the biggest players in the private equity industry are suffering through a bruising downturn, smaller firms such as Triton Pacific that invest in mid-size -- or "middle market" -- companies have emerged as a rare bright spot.

Second of three parts The J.D. Byrider used-car dealership in Visalia, Calif., sits amid a jumble of tow yards, hubcap vendors and vacant lots littered with empty beer cans. It may not look like much, but selling aging cars to waitresses, secretaries and farmworkers is a lucrative business. That's why private equity firm Altamont Capital Partners of Palo Alto bought the J.D. Byrider chain in May for a reported $50 million. Altamont's offices, on the 10th floor of a luxury office tower overlooking Stanford University, are 200 miles and a world away from the Visalia lot. On a recent morning, a dozen executives could be seen huddled in a glass-walled conference room, reviewing a slide presentation on plans to buy some franchised Byrider lots.