Private Equity

  It could be a vanity purchase or a bargain buy - a high-priced bid to pose at any time with your very own professional sports franchise, or a shrewd play to scoop up a big-market team at a discount price, experts said. But while theories abounded Tuesday, the only thing abundantly clear as word spread of talks to sell the 76ers was this: The investors leading the group seeking to buy the NBA franchise from Ed Snider and Comcast-Spectacor were not talking. Those two men are Joshua Harris and David S. Blitzer, graduates of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School who have become big figures in private-equity finance.

Aramark Corp., a privately held Philadelphia food service provider and facilities manager, said Monday that it would borrow money to pay a $712 million dividend to its shareholders. The company's shareholders include private equity firms GS Capital Partners, Thomas H. Lee Partners, and Warburg Pincus L.L.C., which in aggregate own more than 60 percent of the company. In addition, longtime chief executive Joseph Neubauer owns 9.54 percent of the company, which was taken private in January 2007 for $8.3 billion, including equity and assumed debt.

Comcast Corp.'s NBCUniversal agreed to buy the 50 percent stake in two Universal Studios theme parks it doesn't already own from the private-equity firm Blackstone Group L.P. for about $1 billion. The transaction puts the overall value of the Orlando, Fla., parks at about $3.17 billion, Philadelphia-based Comcast said in a statement Monday. Blackstone, based in New York, paid about $275 million for its stake in 2000. Blackstone had set a June 12 deadline for NBCUniversal to buy its stake, after which the private-equity firm would have had 270 days to sell the entire operation.

Private equity firm LLR Partners Inc., of Philadelphia, said yesterday that it had completed a yearlong process of raising $360 million to invest in young technology companies seeking growth capital. LLR Equity Partners II is the second pool of investment money raised by the firm since its inception in October 1999. An initial $260 million fund has been almost fully invested, and investors in that fund already have realized half that amount in proceeds, said Mitchell L. Hollin, an LLR partner.

Fed up with Wall Street analysts, Washington regulators and restive shareholders, some midsize public companies are begging financiers to help them go private, fund managers told the 11th annual Wharton Private Equity Conference yesterday. "A lot of very good senior managers are coming to the conclusion" that public ownership, under current conditions, "doesn't work," said James A. Quella, senior managing director at Blackstone Group, which controls investment capital worth $32 billion.

When Philip Behr goes looking to invest in U.S. companies, he doesn't look for cutting-edge electronics makers or promising biotech firms. Instead, this private-equity capitalist goes after manufacturers of mining equipment, prison locks and, yes, toothpicks. Not much pizazz, he admits, but they're able to produce rates of return of more than 60 percent a year. "In one way or another we try to rejuvenate them," said Behr of Advent International Corp., of Boston. "We're looking for tired, old companies.

Private-equity firm Blackstone Group is buying King of Prussia-based AlliedBarton Security Services Inc., a company that employs 52,000 security guards and others in the United States. Terms of the deal, announced yesterday, were not disclosed. AlliedBarton, formerly SpectaGuard Inc., had revenue of $1.5 billion in 2007 and net income of $347,000, according to a regulatory filing. Before taxes, interest payments and other items, or EBITDA, the firm earned $89.1 million. MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings Inc., which is controlled by financier Ronald O. Perelman, acquired the security firm in 2003 for $263 million.

Cory Booker must feel like the halfback who finally gets to play in the big game — and fumbles the football. But he will get other chances. The Newark mayor's inarticulate handling of a Meet the Press question Sunday about Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's prior career with the Bain Capital private equity firm was painful to watch, but not fatal. Since he was President Obama's surrogate, it was surprising that Booker seemed to defend Romney, saying he disagreed with Obama ads that appear to equate private equity firms with evil incarnate.

TIANJIN, China - Three years ago, Gary Biehn, a partner with White & Williams in Philadelphia, wanted to expand his law firm's reach to this port city in northern China, an economic powerhouse that gets special attention from the country's central planners. The firm already had a business tie to a law firm in Shanghai and saw benefits to connecting with Chinese lawyers here. Biehn reached out to the International Visitors Council of Philadelphia, and a string of calls and connections that played out over the last year culminated in a business agreement signed here Monday under the eye of Mayor Nutter and his Tianjin counterpart, Huang Xingguo.

PQ Corp., a Berwyn chemical manufacturer, is being sold for the second time in less than three years, bringing its owner a huge profit. The Carlyle Group agreed in a deal announced yesterday to pay $1.5 billion for the company, making it a home run for the private-equity arm of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., which bought PQ for $626 million in February 2005. J.P. Morgan bought the 176-year-old company from descendants of founder Joseph Elkinton and managers, employees and retired workers.