Private Equity

The Committee of Seventy, a nonpartisan organization advocating clean and effective government, fair elections, and a better-informed citizenry in the Philadelphia region, has elected Bruce D. Armon to its board. He is Philadelphia office managing partner at Saul Ewing L.L.P.   Safeguard Scientifics Inc., the Wayne holding company that invests in life-sciences and technology firms, said Keith B. Jarrett had been named to its board. Jarrett, who has been involved in venture capital, private equity, and finance technology for more than 25 years, is a private investor and active board representative to venture stage and other private growth equity organizations.

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.

To many observers, it seems strange that two investor groups interested in buying Philadelphia Media Network Inc. have been rebuffed in their attempts to submit bids. Philanthropist Raymond Perelman and developer Bart Blatstein have each complained about being denied the chance to make an offer for The Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, and Philly.com. PMN's owners, a group of financial-investment firms led by privately held hedge funds Alden Global Capital and Angelo, Gordon & Co., won't say why. Neither will Evercore Partners Inc., the New York investment bank hired to manage the sale of the parent company of the media properties.

Corporate buyouts of underperforming companies - "private-equity investments," as financiers prefer to call them - made Mitt Romney rich and launched him toward the presidency. So his Republican rivals, and President Obama , are blaming Romney for the factory and office closings, firings, transfer payments, and junk-bond financings that often follow buyout deals. And private-equity investors are jumping to the defense. "Attacks on private equity" threaten the most successful, productive sector of our depressed economy, argues Andrew T. Greenberg , investment banker at Fairmount Partners in West Conshohocken and chief executive officer at GF Data Resources L.L.C.

"No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty-five years" - U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 1 By John E. Sununu The Constitution may be the foundation of American democracy, but the qualifications...

COLUMBIA, S.C. - With the GOP presidential race in South Carolina tightening Friday, front-runner Mitt Romney launched a TV ad that portrays his tenure as the head of a private equity company positively, while Newt Gingrich rolled out a Web spot mocking Romney's ability to speak French. The nastiness that usually accompanies this state's primaries continued to bubble to the surface as three polls released Friday showed a two-man contest shaping up, with Romney holding thin leads over Gingrich with little more than a week before next Saturday's vote.

From: The Obama reelection team To: Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry Message: Thank you, thank you, thank you! It's not often that President Obama gets to applaud Republicans for carrying his water. The president has long intended to paint Mitt Romney as a soulless predator who racked up huge profits during the '90s while frequently laying people off. He has long planned to cite Romney's Bain Capital tenure as proof that the guy is a card-carrying member of the 1 percent, a multimillionaire plutocrat ill-suited to feel people's pain in a recession.

The private-equity firm TPG Capital L.P. has agreed to purchase Northeast Philadelphia-based automotive-parts remanufacturer Cardone Industries in a deal expected to close by year's end, Cardone announced Friday. No terms were disclosed, but the family-owned company said it had signed definitive agreements to sell its North American operations to the private-investment firm. TPG Capital will become the controlling shareholder and work with the family to "continue the company's growth," Cardone said in a statement.