Private Equity

washington -- Mitt Romney twice emphasized his unique business background when he and eight other Republican presidential candidates faced off in a debate last week in Iowa. "I've spent the last, as I've told you, 25 years in the private sector," former Massachusetts Gov. Romney declared at one point. "I understand why jobs come and why jobs go. I've done business in 20 countries."

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.

Three days after a private equity firm bought the San Diego Union-Tribune in mid-2009, it did what private equity firms frequently do: It cut a lot of jobs. The cost savings from the 192 layoffs announced that day, and 150 or so others over the next year, helped Beverly Hills-based Platinum Equity more than triple its money when it sold the newspaper in November. It wasn't nearly so rosy for people thrown out of work in a punishing economy. That's life in the private equity world, where layoffs are part of the playbook that elite investment firms use to squeeze cash out of struggling companies.

Benihana Inc., the Japanese-style and sushi restaurant chain known for slicing, dicing and frying food in front of diners, has accepted an offer to be sold to a private equity group for $296 million. Angelo, Gordon & Co. plans to pay Benihana shareholders $16.30 a share in cash in a transaction that's been approved by the Miami-based chain's board. Benihana shareholders must also approve the acquisition. The price is a premium of 46% over the average closing price for the 30 days before March 13, when Benihana first said it was exploring strategic alternatives for its business.

Pension funds and other big investors have been warned to scale back their return expectations in the private-equity buyout business. But they still committed $2.75 billion to a new leveraged buyout fund launched by Beverly Hills-based Platinum Equity. That was $1.25 billion more than Platinum CEO Tom Gores' target, he said -- and $2.05 billion more than went into his first such fund, in 2004. The private-equity business isn't what it used to be, but a lot of institutional investors may figure they won't do better elsewhere, given the sorry state of financial markets.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — P.F. Chang's is being acquired and taken private by a private equity firm in a deal valued at about $1.09 billion. Under the terms of the agreement released Tuesday, New York's Centerbridge Partners LP will buy shares of P.F. Chang's China Bistro Inc. for $51.50 each. The cash offer represents a 40 percent premium over the company's Monday closing stock price. The news sent shares of P.F. Chang's soaring $12.06, or 30 percent, to $51.75 in premarket trading.

After debating competing buyout offers, the parent company of the Carl's Jr. hamburger chain said it would be acquired by an affiliate of Apollo Management, spurning an earlier suitor. Apollo's offer is the latest twist for a storied Southern California company that was founded as a Los Angeles hot dog stand in the 1940s by charismatic entrepreneur Carl Karcher. The transaction is significant because it may mark the first in a series of restaurant chain sales, said Randall Hiatt, president of Fessel International Inc., a Costa Mesa-based restaurant industry consulting firm.

WASHINGTON — Carlyle Group is planning to raise $100 million through an initial public offering. The private equity firm is going public even as fears about the global economy have punished stock markets. Many companies canceled their IPOs in August. Private equity firms buy companies and later try to sell them for more money. They often borrow money to fund their purchases. The business slumped during the recession. Other large private equity companies have gone public recently.

Escalating criticism by political foes of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney for his work at Bain Capital is unfairly giving private equity a bad name, an industry trade association said Monday. "There is a lot of misinformation being spread, purely for political purposes and on both sides of the aisle, as it pertains to private equity, said Steve Judge, interim head of the Private Equity Growth Capital Council. "While the business model has evolved over time, the fact of the matter is private equity provides capital and operational expertise to companies that are often underperforming or on the brink of failure.

The California Public Employees' Retirement System, the country's largest public pension fund, has named a new investment executive to run its $49-billion private equity portfolio. Real Desrochers, who spent a decade doing a similar job for the California State Teachers' Retirement System, replaces Leon Shahinian, who resigned in August. He left the agency after being put on administrative leave in the wake of a spreading corruption scandal at CalPERS. Shahinian was mentioned but not named as a defendant in a 2010 lawsuit filed by then-Atty.

It's come to this: Joe Biden compared Mitt Romney to a horse. The vice president, campaigning in New Hampshire on Tuesday, argued that Romney has it wrong when he tells voters that things "have gotten much worse" and that Obama administration policies are to blame. Biden was armed with a chart that showed monthly job losses that grew in the final months of the George W. Bush administration began to diminish after President Obama took office, and eventually turned into job growth.

Clothing retailer The Talbots Inc. says it has received a $210.9 million takeover offer from private equity firm Sycamore Partners. Sycamore, Talbot's largest shareholder, is offering $3.05 per share for the company. That's a 9 percent premium from the stock's closing price on Friday. Talbots, based in Hingham, Mass., announced the offer on Monday. Talbots had 69.2 million shares outstanding as of Jan. 28, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — P.F. Chang's is being acquired and taken private by a private equity firm in a deal valued at about $1.09 billion. Under the terms of the agreement released Tuesday, New York's Centerbridge Partners LP will buy shares of P.F. Chang's China Bistro Inc. for $51.50 each. The cash offer represents a 40 percent premium over the company's Monday closing stock price. The news sent shares of P.F. Chang's soaring $12.06, or 30 percent, to $51.75 in premarket trading.

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.

Are political centrists in America without a political home? Do we need a third-party presidential candidate to represent those socially progressive, fiscally austere voters who find our two parties too extreme? There's no disputing that the Republican Party continues to move rightward at warp speed. Virtually every GOP elected official who's been in office for more than a couple of years has had to repudiate previously mainstream Republican positions (such as creating a health insurance system with an individual mandate, an idea cooked up by a right-wing think tank)

Every day, it seems, private equity investment firms are announcing new and larger funds. Blackstone Group said last week it would raise $11 billion from pension funds and other investors to put capital to work in a variety of industrial companies. If it gets the money, the 20-year-old firm founded by onetime Commerce Secretary Peter G. Peterson would top Goldman, Sachs & Co., which raised $8.

The volume of U.S. private equity deals continued its recent slide in the first quarter amid rising prices for companies, increased competition from corporate buyers and a drying up of acquisition targets. While the number and total value of private equity deals worldwide rose during the quarter, U.S. deals slipped to 173 acquisitions worth $30.7 billion, according to financial data provider Dealogic. That was down from 174 acquisitions worth $30.8 billion in the year-earlier period.

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.