Filed under: Raising money, Investments, Public or private?

Despite plenty of turmoil in the stock market, 2007 will go down as a pretty solid one for venture-backed companies that found their way to the public markets or were bought out.

According to the fourth quarter Exit Poll done by Thomson Financial and the National Venture Capital Association, 31 venture-backed companies went public in the fourth quarter, the most since the third quarter of 2000, raising $3 billion. For the year, 86 venture-backed companies went public, raising $10.3 billion, a 51% increase in volume over 2006, when 57 companies went public, and more than doubling the $5.1 billion those companies raised.

However, only 45 venture-backed companies were acquired in the fourth quarter, the lowest number of M&A exits since the first quarter of 1998, when there were 44 M&A exits. For the year, though, there were 304 venture-backed M&A transactions with a total disclosed value of $23.7 billion, the highest disclosed value since 2000.

Continue reading at TechConfidential.com.

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Filed under: Raising money, Private equity industry

I love when experts declare the obvious. Talking about the glut of private equity debt that investment banks are now looking to push onto investors, John Eydenberg, head of leveraged finance for the Americas at Deutsche Bank AG in New York, told Bloomberg that “the market can absorb all these deals. It is a question of time and price”.

Well, duh. But isn’t that kind of like saying that a store will be able to unload all those hideous, out of style clothes — it’s just a matter of time and price? Given an infinite amount of time and a willingness to sell at any price, pretty much anything can be sold!

And that’s the situation with private equity right now. Investment banks which must place billions of bonds to finance buyouts are having trouble finding buyers in the midst of the credit crunch. Banks are frequently offering investors bonds at a 5-10% discount to face value.

The difficulty banks are having in placing debt — and the extra yield investors are demanding — should prolong the slowdown in buyouts. And if investors aren’t eager to buy the bonds, investment banks won’t be eager to finance buyouts.

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Filed under: Audio, World wide web, Social Software

They say mimicry is the sincerest form of flattery. But we have to wonder if web radio pioneers like Pandora and Last.fm are flattered or just annoyed that they’ve inspired a new genre of web site. MeeMix is the latest service that creates a custom web radio stream based on your personal tastes.

All you have to do to get started is visit MeeMix and type in the name of a song or artist you like. MeeMix will play a first track by that artist and then offer up music from a similar performer. If you like the next song, drag the slider over toward “hot.” If not, try the cleverly titled “not” button. You don’t need to register for an account to use MeeMix, but if you register you can create and save multiple channels and save your preferences.

You can also share your channels with multiple users, leave comments on songs, and share “Mee Feeds” letting your friends know what you’ve been up to on MeeMix. There’s also Twitter integration, letting you send out tweets letting your contacts know what you’ve been listening to.

The music catalog seems to be decent, but hardly inclusive. And as a Tel Aviv-based company, MeeMix has an odd (to Western eyes) way of organizing your playlist. New tracks show up on the left of the display, meaning you’ve to scroll to the right to find previously played songs.

[via TechCrunch]

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Filed under: Borrowing, Cards, Debt, Ripoffs and Scams

Unless you pay off your credit card in full each month, you likely have no idea exactly how much your credit card debt is costing you. While some consumers might know that they’ve a special introductory rate of 0% or 3.99%, most don’t know the terms on the regular cards that they use everyday.

And it’s not enough to just know the interest rate on your card. You also need to know how that’s calculated, what happens to the rate if you pay late, what other actions may cause you to default on your card, what types of fees or surcharges you could incur, whether you’ve some sort of annual fee, and tons of other details.

Credit card agreements have become so complex that they’re not even understandable by the average consumer anymore. I challenge anyone who’s been carrying a balance on their card for the last year to compute for me exactly what their interest charges will be next month. Chances, are, they’ve no idea. If you’ve no idea how much you’re going to pay for your credit, how can you make an informed decision about whether or not to incur the debt?

The solution to this problem: Don’t use credit cards unless you absolutely have to. Pay off your balance in full each month, prior to the due date. Don’t get sucked into a credit card trap you can’t possibly comprehend.

Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations for her company Sequence Inc. Forensic Bookkeeping, and is the author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud.

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