Apax Partners’ recently announced take private of BankRate is an encouraging sign for PE m&a.  Mega-sized firms have been pretty quiet of late despite sitting on billions, and have spent more time marking down old investments than making new ones.  Apax’s 20 odd-member media group hasn’t done a deal in over a year and you can tell they’re serious/excited about BankRate.  Should Apax walk away from their offer, they’ve agreed to pay the full purchase price anyway of $570,800,000.

Apax’s offer for BankRate is all cash.  Given the current state of m&a, you’d think this is just a reflection of continued tight credit markets, however prior transactions in boom years proves otherwise.   Apax’s $1.6 billion take private of Tommy Hilfiger in 2006 and its $7.5 billion acquisition of Thomson Learning (with OMERS Capital) in 2007 were also all cash.

After two years of trying to do the impossible in first turning around and then saving Chrysler for Cerberus, ex-CEO Bob Nardelli has apparently returned to the investment firm that recruited him in 2007.  Nardelli’s new role will be heading up Cerberus’ unit charged with overseeing the operations of the investment firm’s portfolio holdings, appropriately named Cerberus Operating and Advisory Company LLC or COAC.  Nardelli will manage other operating pros responsible for monitoring and assisting Cerberus’ current investments, as well as sourcing and conducting due diligence on new opportunities.  Cerberus hasn’t shown much of an appetite lately for making new acquisitions, but there must be a few companies amongst the private equity firm’s 30 odd portfolio roster that can benefit from Nardelli’s brief education in the auto industry.

With a very public Twitter security breach leading to leaked internal documents, one newsworthy disclosure is the top line revenue numbers company execs feel the business can achieve over the next few years.  The numbers go like this; $4.4 million for the second half of 2009, and $140 million for 2010.  Now I’m from Minnesota, but I’ve never seen a hockey stick raked that much.  Can’t argue with Twitter’s user growth, but for a company with no guessable blockbuster monetization play, the somewhat random figures are amusing.  We all know investors basically discount projections anyway, PE just as much as VC, but to see these figures batted around internally - not just in pitchbooks, is very interesting.

It’s been reported recently that buyout vet Tom Hicks’ sports empire is crumbling with rumors that his Texas Rangers had to borrow from Major League Baseball just to meet payroll.  This is on top of news several months ago that Hicks Sports Group (HSG), the parent vehicle that owns the Rangers, as well as the NHL’s Dallas Stars amongst other assets had defaulted on $500+ million worth of loans, including a chunk of money lent from Mr. Hicks himself.

Hicks has suggested HSG is just another victim of the global credit crunch (i.e. inability to borrow to the hilt) and economic turmoil, but the bigger problem seems to be poor management, somehow thinking servicing $500 million worth of loans was sustainable.  While sports teams can be great investments, generally inching up over time, they’ve never proven to be tremendous cash-flow generators (even in good times) which makes me wonder how HSG was ever able to convince the 40th lender that $500 million was perfectly sustainable with plenty of margin (a couple autographed bobbleheads perhaps).  Have to give credit to HSG for sustaining at least 1 year into the slowdown.

It’ll be interesting to see where Hicks and HSG goes from here.

Anything to cheer about now that the first half of 2009 is in the bag?  Honestly, not really but at least we can say that some private equity m&a did occur.

Lookin’ at the number of buy-side transactions at some of the big firms yields the following . . .