Private equity firms keep raising money, but where is it going to go?

silverlake2.jpgSilver Lake Partners, a Menlo Park, Calif. buyout firm that bought Seagate, Flextronics, Gartner and other companies before turning them around, has finished raising its third fund at $9.3 billion in capital, according to LBO Wire (no link). It’s much larger than the firm’s previous fund, raised in 2004, of $3.6 billion.

The pace at which the private equity industry keeps raising money is astonishing. The amount of capital swashing around among the world’s investors is huge, and these investors have little choice but to earmark it for various asset classes, such as stocks, bonds and alternative investments — including private equity.

Here’s a piece suggesting there are dark clouds gathering on the private equity industry: “At issue is nearly US$1 trillion that is not producing any returns, and the numbers are expected to reach even higher levels.”

silver-lake-partners-old.jpgAlso, Silver Lake has undergone a rebranding. It has lost its initial logo, which looked very similar to the old logo of high-profile venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins (which had been an investor in Silver Lake in previous funds through another partnership, Integral Capital Partners). That may be because Roger McNamee, an initial partner at Silver Lake with close ties to Integral and Kleiner, has since left the firm. Kleiner itself has also refashioned its home page in recent months.

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About the Author,

Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded "Journalist of the Year" by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies.

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