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(Reuters) - U.S. newspaper and magazine publisher Hearst Corp is closer to buying digital marketing company iCrossing for about $375 million, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter. The iCrossing deal would help Hearst to augment its Web presence and win more advertisement dollars from the Internet, the Journal said. In the deal, which is in the final stages of negotiations, iCrossing is likely to fetch about $375 million, plus bonus payments if it reaches certain targets, the people told the paper. “While going through the process of evaluating iCrossing’s position in the market, we have spoken with, and entered into, non-disclosure agreements with many companies,” iCrossing’s spokesperson Dana Mellecker told Re
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peHUB First Read
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 * James Altucher: 25 reasons to believe in the market rally * The Private Equity Council is lowering its gates, allowing smaller firms to join (sub req). * Morning Call: U.S. futures point lower, London falls early, European shares retreat, the Nikkei loses 1.7% and China shares tumble. * Katie Fehrenbacher goes deep inside the Amyris Biotech IPO filing. * Hugh MacLeod: "Numbers do lie, sometimes pathologically so..." * At what point do Felix Salmon and Henry Blodget get their own Crossfire-type show? Or financial celebrity boxing show on CNBC, with the turtle as referee? The latest: Salmon savages Blodget's contrarian defense of Goldman Sachs. Read more »
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FRANKFURT (Reuters) - U.S. private equity firm Blackstone (BX.N) is looking into the possibility of buying Cologne department store chain Kaufhof, part of the Metro group (MEOG.DE), German business daily Handelsblatt said in an abstract of a story due to be published on Monday. The paper cited works council sources. A spokesman for Metro AG said in a written statement that his company was in preliminary and open-ended talks about Kaufhof with several possible investors but he would not name names. “We do not have time pressure regarding the
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San Francisco Shindig Photos
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 Great to see so many of you there, and sorry we’d been gone for so long (our last SF event was in October '08). Next up will be Chicago, with details to come soon. And, yes, we do hope to return to San Francisco before the year is out. A final thanks to our sponsors: Capital Dynamics, FLAG Capital, Rothstein Kass, SecondMarket and True Ventures. Photos after the jump... Read more »
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NXP, which filed under the name Kaslion Acquisition B.V., said it would change its name to NXP. Private equity investors including Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co, Bain Capital, Silver Lake Partners, Apax and AlpInvest Partners bought an 80 percent stake in the company in 2006 from Konin
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NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - Providence Equity Partners is among the bidders for corporate investigations firm Kroll, along with BC Partners Ltd and Apax, as private equity deals heat up again, sources familiar with the matter said. Kroll, put up for sale by the No. 2 global insurance broker Marsh & McLennan Cos Inc (MMC.N), attracted interest from a number of private equity firms, but the auction is now zeroing in on a few bidders, sources said. The next round of bids is due later in April, two of those sources said. Providence would bid through its portfolio company Altegrity, one of the sources said. Altegrity, a Virginia-based security solutions firm, is run by Michael Cherkasky, who is very familiar with Kroll. He was formerly Marsh & McLennan’s chief exe
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A Venture Firm Winds Down (the Right Way): Say Adieu to Levensohn Venture Partners
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 Not cited is whether or not the decision had to do with LP reaction to a possible fourth fund, which was rumored to have been in the works. San Francisco-based Levensohn Venture Partners is a San Francisco-based firm that has made early-stage investments in the digital media, security and demand-side cleantech space. Read more »
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All About Steve
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 In a 27-page document, the New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo lays out a narrative in which Rattner -- then a partner of private equity firm Quadrangle Group -- fought to secure business for the brother of New York’s chief investment officer, at the urging of now-indicted “finder” Hank Morris. Specifically, Rattner persuaded a Quadrangle portfolio company (since defunct) sign a DVD distribution deal for the brother’s film – “Chooch” – over the initial objections of portfolio company management. Once the DVD distribution deal was signed, Rattner retained Morris as a “placement agent,” in order to secure fund commitments for Quadrangle Group. Morris helped Quadrangle raise $100 million from the New York State Common Retirement Fund, even though one of Quadrangle’s legitimate placement agents – Monument Group – only had been able to secure between $25 million and $50 million. This increase occurred without Morris setting up or attending any meetings with NYCRF on Quadrangle’s behalf. Morris also helped Quadrangle secure $75 million from New York City, in part via a deal with another placement agent named Julio Ramirez, who last year pled guilty to securities fraud. Quadrangle did not disclose Morris and Ramirez's involvement in official disclosure forms. As a follow-up, the CIO’s brother helped put Rattner in touch with potential investors on the West Coast. These included Elliott Broidy, who sat on the board of the Los Angeles Fire & Police Pension Fund. That system gave Quadrangle $10 million, and Broidy has since pled guilty to felony charges of rewarding official misconduct. Read more »
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PE Debt Watch (Downgrades and Upgrades)
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 Company: Harrah’s Sponsor: Apollo Management and TPG Action: S&P raised its corporate credit and issue-level ratings on the company and its operating subsidiary by one notch. S&P raised the corporate credit rating to 'B-' from 'CCC+'. Highlight: "The ratings upgrade reflects our assessment that several actions taken by management over the past several quarters have positioned the company with sufficient capacity to weather the current downturn in the gaming sector," said Standard & Poor's credit analyst Ben Bubeck. Read more »
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Inside the Badass Yacht of Billionaire Andrey Melnichenko
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Thanks, Wall Street Journal, for this rare glimpse into the interior of one of the world's most luxe yachts. Designed by Phillipe Starck, the $300 million "A" is rife with enough mirrors, Baccarat crystal, and silverleaf to have made Liberace blush, but the greatest extravagance aboard the 394-foot colossus-- and the greatest eccentricity -- may be the room lined exclusively with stingray hides. (Really.)
Melnichenko, for anyone who cares, is the billionaire chair of Russia's largest fertilizer producer, EuroChem. Video after the jump. Read more »
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peHUB First Read
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* Jim Jubak: The key ingredient to financial bubbles is cheap money * Rafat Ali: What questions will be answered by Demand Media's IPO filing? * Morning Call: U.S. futures point lower, London opens flat, European shares stay at 19-month high, the Nikkei loses 1.5% and Hong Kong shares retreat. * Private equity's property problems * Bloomberg expects 19 greentech IPOs this year * Mike Hirshland to Twitter developers: Don't be scared. Just be smart. * The next $10 billion LBO might be right around the corner (this is theoretical, not specific) Read more »
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Halsey Minor Tops California’s List of Tax Scofflaws
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 Minor’s financial troubles aren’t new, if their depth continues to surprise. Most recently, Minor was on the verge of losing his family’s long-held home, an estate in Charlottesville, Va., featuring a Federal-style mansion with high-ceilinged rooms,...
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The company reports $155 million in 2009 revenue, compared to $133 million in 2008 and nearly $96 million in 2007. Its 2009 net loss was $6.8 million, down from $28 million in 2008. NeoPhotnics has raised over $240 in VC funding, including a 2004 recap round. Shareholders
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Boss shares had risen as much as 6.5 percent as traders cited talk that the Marzotto family, co-owners with Permira of a company that holds 55 percent of Hugo Boss’s voting shares, may be planning a bid for remaining Boss ordinary shares at 27.75
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Q1 VC Investment Data Is A Mixed Bag
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 The biggest losers were life sciences companies, whose collective take fell 26% quarter-over-quarter. Cleantech, on the other ha...
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Can You Feel the Bubble Spray? Groupon’s Founders Smartly Take the Money and Run
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 According to TC’s source, Digital Sky Technologies, the same Russian holding company that’s become a major stakeholder in Facebook, is leading the round with participation from Battery Ventures and, presumably, Accel Partners, which led the company’s $30 million Series B just five months ago. The best part about this story? According to TC, Groupon isn’t raising the money for operations because it’s right now making money “hand over fist.” Instead, Groupon is taking the money to cash out insiders. If we were talking about twentysomethings without enough capital to buy themselves penthouse apartments, I could understand their rationale. But Groupon’s insiders are fabulously wealthy. Read more »
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