private equity

Fort Lauderdale, Fla., law firm leader Scott Rothstein would piggyback on actual lawsuits, including one tawdry case his firm was handling, to solicit investors in an alleged Ponzi scheme, according to a lawsuit by investors claiming more than $100 million in losses. The Broward Circuit Court case filed Friday alleges Rothstein told investors he was handling confidential settlements with billionaire financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who was accused of engaging in sexual activities wit

The Ponzi scheme simply could not have gained traction without TD Bank’s involvement in sanctioning or otherwise willfully failing to authenticate the origin of the enormous amounts of money coming through its doors   -William Scherer

 

UP TO five heavyweight private equity groups are believed to have placed bids for Matalan, the discount clothing chain. John Hargreaves, the group's founder and sole shareholder, put the chain up for sale earlier this year, sparking an auction with a price tag expected to reach £1.5 billion. ent International, have all reportedly placed bids for the company. Matalan, which declined to comment yesterday, has shown resilience in the recession as its cut-price clothes and homewares attract cost-conscio  

FUND manager Gartmore yesterday confirmed plans to list before Christmas in a move likely to value it at £1 billion, sparking hopes of a run of initial public offerings of private equity-backed companies. Gartmore, which is part owned by San Franciso-based private equity firm Hellman & Friedman, expects to sell a 30 to 50 per cent stake to investors, raising £500 million to £550m in the process. der management, at about £1bn. The listing will be the London Stock Exchange's biggest IPO this year and  

Hershey Co. may bid $17 billion for UK candy company Cadbury PLC, topping the recent $16.5 billion hostile offer by Kraft Foods Inc., the Wall Street Journal reported Friday. The bid wouldn't be ready for two weeks, and the terms are in flux, the newspaper says people close to the matter have said. But the people said that the charitable trust that controls the company and has complicated Hershey's merger efforts in the past is now prodding CEO David West to beat Kraft's offer, the Journal reports.

We’re the only offer on the table   -Michael Mitchell

 

I met recently with Bob Nascenzi, the software industry executive who stepped in last May as the CEO of ProQuo, the San Diego startup that was created to help consumers control their personal information and reduce their junk mail. I didn't realize, however, that ProQuo had shut down. The last I heard about the company's status was just over six months ago, when ProQuo founder Steven Gal sent out a mass e-mail to thousands of his contacts (including me) announcing Nascenzi's appointment and his own depa  

The bankrupt Vineyards Resort, a proposed destination golf and residential community southeast of Yakima, has a pulse after all. The local investors who purchased rights to buy the first housing lots are working to develop a plan to complete the 500-acre project on Nightingale Road, several individuals in the group have confirmed. As conceived, the $100 million project would include more than 500 single-family homes, rental units, a hotel and retail center, and an 18-hole golf course, . The effort,

We authorized him to continue the effort and compile a proposal to present to Stark. He is in the process of doing that   -Sam Baker

 

Takeovers are back. That's good news for investors. When companies are eager to make acquisitions, it's an encouraging sign to the market.  

News Corporation, Time Warner Incorporation and Qualia Capital LLC are interested in buying Hollywood's Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio, home of the James Bond movies, Bloomberg News reported on Friday. Citing people with knowledge of the situation, the report said the companies have not yet examined the studio's finances and their level of interest will depend on price. Burdened by about USD 4 billion in debt, Los Angeles-based MGM said last week it was weighing options, including a possible sale of  

There were $34.8 billion of initial public offerings in China this year and only $13.7 billion in the U.S. With numbers like that, is it any surprise that Western fund managers are scrambling to get a bite of the immensely profitable Chinese market for new companies? As the New York Times reported , U.S.-based Blackstone Group has formed a partnership with Shanghai's municipal government to raise a $732 million private equity fund. What's different this time is that Blackstone's fund is denominated in