August 6, 2008
According to a recent report first time buyers in many parts of the UK would still be better off purchasing a property than renting on a long term basis, despite increased borrowing costs and tight credit conditions. The report states that with house prices falling and rental prices rising many first time buyers could save thousands of pounds over a twenty five year period if they purchase a home rather than renting one.
However, this does not apply in all areas. Whereas buyers could save an average £10,500 over a twenty year period in many others – and even up to £60,000 in some areas – there are also areas, such as Northern Ireland, where the buyer is more likely to lose out over the longer term compared to the first time buyer that rents. At present many first time buyers are reluctant to buy despite falling property prices, with fears that the value of the property may plunge further once they have made the purchase.
This has resulted in more interest in private rentals, and landlords are seeing strong demand for rental properties. Figures show that over the past two years buy to let loans have been increasing, and they now account for around 10% of all mortgage loan lending. Despite these reports some officials say that tenants are more likely to be able to cope with the current financial climate compared to homeowners, with one official stating: "They don’t have to remortgage, won’t suffer equity losses and their expenditure on basic commodities is lower too."
Another reason why many first time buyers are deciding to rent rather than buy is because they cannot get the finance to purcahse a home. First time buyers are amongst the hardest hit groups in terms of the tighter credit conditions and increased borrowing costs that have stemmed from the global credit crunch.
Posted in US Private Equity 
No Comments »
August 1, 2008
Aditya Birla Telecom, in a press release mentioned that Providence Equity Partners, a leading private equity fund based out of silicon valley, USA has signed an agreement with the company for investing about $650 million USD in the company to obtain a 20% stake in ABTL. Aditya Birla Telecom is a gully owned subsidiary of Idea Cellular, a company involved in providing mobile phone access and mobile value added services to customers in India.
Posted in Indian Private Equity No Comments »
July 14, 2008
As per a recent press release, a group of investors advised by J.C. Flowers, a leading US based private equity fund has put in a bid of 1.1 billion euros about 25 percent stake of Hypo Real Estate Holding AG. The offer, which seems to be extremely attractive, opens this Friday and will remain open for a couple of weeks. Hypo Real Estate is a reputed Munich based real estate based company which maintains an expertise in providing finanancing for commercial real estate, the public sector and infrastructure projects in the country. More updates on the bid, including details on whether it has been acepted or rejected by Hypo Real Estate will be updated in this post shortly.
Posted in Real Estate Private Equity No Comments »
June 2, 2008
JPMorgan Asset Management has announced a new real estate fund called Greater China Property Fund. JP Morgan estimates that it is likely to raise close to $600 million in commitments and get a closure for this property fund by the second quarter of 2008. Greater China Property Fund will invest in promising real estate parcels in China which is the fastest growing economy in the world. As the global head for JPMAM’s real estate and infrastructure unit sums it up “China, at present, is probably the most dynamic and exciting economic region in the world”. JPMorgan already has a JP Morgan India Property Fund in asia making the JP Morgan Greater China Property Fund, the second asia specific real estate fund for JP Morgan. JP Morgan India Property Fund is a $360 million fund which has already invested in 3-4 excellent real estate parcels in India.
Posted in Fund Raising No Comments »
May 17, 2008
Groupama which is one of the top Insurance companies in France is said to be toying with the idea of acquiring Turkish Guven which is a leading turkish insurance company. Groupama is expected to make an offer to acquire Guven Sigorta and Guven Hayat for $287 million, in the foreseeable future. Guven Sigorta is a non-life general insurance company while Guven Hayat is a life insurance company. Guven Sigorta has a 2.4% stake in the turkish general insurance market while Guven Hayat has a 1.2% stake in the Turkish general insurance market. Groupama which is an unlisted french insurance company is one of the big 3 insurance companies, the others being AXA and CNP.
Posted in Mergers & Acquisitions No Comments »
April 21, 2008
Venture Capital funds are investing aggressively in India and China as if there is no tomorrow. Most of the funding is going into companies operating in booming sectors like IT, Retail, Real Estate and Biotechnology. A Dow Jones press report has identified that venture capital investments are also flowing heavily into Europe and Israel. Green Technology is another area which is attracting a lot of private equity investments. Mark Heesen who is the president of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), told The Wall Street Journal that Germany and Spain are top destinations for startup cash as they are presently the global leaders in employing the green technology.
Posted in Venture Capital No Comments »
March 9, 2008
Cbay Systems, with the help of private equity investments of $123 million from Lehman Brothers and SAC Private Capital Group will acquire majority stake in MedQuist which is a leading medical transcription firm. As per reports, Cbay Systems will acquire 75% stake in MedQuist from Koninklijke Philips Electronics. It is important to note that MedQuist is much larger in size when compared to Cbay Systems. Cbay Systems reported a revenue of $57 million in 2007 as opposed $340 million reported by MedQuist.
With the $123 million private equity funding, Lehman Brothers and SAC Private Capital Group will obtain a 58% stake in Cbay Systems. Cbay Systems is a publicly traded company which is listed on the AIM market.
Posted in Mergers & Acquisitions No Comments »
February 27, 2008
New England’s Private Equity funds have raised record cummulative funds of $7 billion from investors in the first quarter of 2008. There has been a marked 100% increase in the amount of funds raised last quarter in this financial year vis-a-vis the same quarter in the previous financial year. Further New England’s Private Equity Funds have raised funds which is in excess of the funds raised by the entire nation as a whole, in the first quarter of 2008.
However, on the other hand, the amount of funds raised by venture capital funds has gone down not only in New England, but the whole country as well . When compared to the senario in the U.S., it is exactly the reverse. In U.S. thr growth of private equity funds has declined and the funds raised by venture capital funds has gone up. A find manager of a leading U.S. venture capital was quoted as saying that in the U.S. venture capital funds seemed to outperform provate equity funds by a huge margin.
Posted in New England PE Funds No Comments »
January 4, 2008
If the market grapevine is to be believed, Banca Leonardo which is a boutique investment bank has plans of taking a 20% to 25% equity stake in BS Private Equity which unlike Banca Leonardo is not a boutique investment bank but a full fledged midmarket Investment Bank. Both Banca Leonardo and BS Private Equity are based out of Italy. After taking the proposed 20 to 25% stake in BS Private Equity, Banca Leonardo is likely to have an option to buy the remaining stake of BS Private Equity within a period of 2 years from the date the contract is signed.
Banca Leonardo was started just two years ago and has seen rapid progress and has become one of the leading Investment Banks operating out of Italy. Banca Leonardo was founded by the famous Italian banker Gerardo Braggiotti. With the Italian economy booming, the private equity and venture capital industry in Ital is doing extremely well.
Posted in Italian Private Equity No Comments »
December 17, 2007
Private Equity funds (PE Funds) focussed on real estate in India are approaching the Indian real estate market with caution and have drastically scaled down new funding of real estate projects in India. It has been reported that nearly 30% of existing investments made recently in residential projects by various real estate PE funds in new residential projects of leading Indian real estate developers are at very high valuations. Till end of 2007, there was optimism all around in this industry and a record number of projects were getting private equity funding. But the Indian real estate market has witnessed a correction of 10 - 25% in most tier 1 and tier 2 cities. This along with the recession in the USA has brought new project fundings by real estate private equity funds to a handful this quarter. As real estate research company, Real Estate Intelligence’s Head of Research, Roy Amalraj points out, “Real Estate funds are now very selective and do an in-depth analysis of costs involved and quality of existing projects”.
Posted in Real Estate Private Equity No Comments »
content rss