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| The House passed legislation
that would make small businesses majority-owned by venture capital firms eligible for Small Business
Innovation Research awards. Since 2003, the SBIR program has been dogged by controversy over what
constitutes a small business, when the SBA ruled that a company no longer qualifies as a small
business if venture capital firms have an equity stake of 50 percent of more in the company. |
| (Source: Jacksonville Business Journal,
2008-05-05) |
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| Consumers and businesses found
it harder to borrow money over the past three months, the Federal Reserve reported, a sign that the
historic credit crunch now hitting the economy is still worsening despite Herculean efforts by the
Fed. More than half of the banks surveyed by the Fed said they had tightened the screws on
commercial and industrial loans, commercial real estate loans, residential mortgages, and
home-equity lines of credit. |
| (Source: MarketWatch (free reg. req'd),
2008-05-05) |
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| The recent success of two IPOs
-- Visa and Intrepid Potash -- begs the question, is the market for initial public offerings heating
up? "I do think it's the beginning of a recovery, now that the market is stabilizing," says Scott
Billeadeau, managing director at Fifth Third Asset Management. |
| (Source: CNBC, 2008-04-29) |
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| These days, small business
owners are turning to non-traditional sources, such as credit unions to get money to start and
expand their companies. Increasing numbers are going to online lending Web sites that cut out the
traditional bank middleman and to factoring companies, which buy companies' future revenues. But
some of these alternative financers are more expensive than a traditional bank loan, or brand-new
and largely untested. |
| (Source: CNNMoney.com, 2008-05-02) |
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| As tightening credit markets
have made it more difficult and costly to raise funds for large acquisitions, investors have opted
to buy smaller stakes in companies rather than pursuing full takeovers. April marked the eighth
consecutive month of increasing minority-stake acquisitions, according to Thomson Reuters. |
| (Source: Reuters, 2008-04-30) |
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| Several press reports spun the
$23 billion Mars-Wm. Wrigley Jr. deal as a strategic transaction done as a leveraged buyout. Boy,
were they more right than they knew. The structure in this deal is the private equity model on very
prominent display in a variety of failed buyouts in the past nine months: Harman International,
Acxiom, PHH, Reddy Ice, Meyers Industries, etc. |
| (Source: The New York Times (free reg. req'd),
2008-05-01) |
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| For the second consecutive
quarter, consumer demand topped the list of CFO worries in the quarterly Duke University/CFO
magazine Global Business Outlook Survey. The related issues of credit markets, housing-market
fallout, the cost of fuel, and the cost of other commodities also ranked in the top 10. |
| (Source: CFO.com, 2008-05-01) |
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| A House committee passed an
anti-piracy bill that would stiffen penalties for illegally copying and distributing music and
movies and would create an "intellectual property czar" at the White House level -- a job that the
Justice Department warned would "undermine" its independence. |
| (Source: The Washington Post (free reg. req'd),
2008-05-01) |
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| A fight has erupted in
Congress over whether drug makers and other companies should be allowed to keep patents they
obtained by misrepresentation or cheating. The issue has emerged as a contentious point in
legislation to overhaul patent laws. |
| (Source: The New York Times (free reg. req'd),
2008-04-30) |
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| In the first quarter of this
year 135 Israeli high-tech companies raised $617 million from venture investors, the highest amount
in seven years, according to a quarterly survey from the IVC Research Center. The capital raised in
the quarter was 52 percent above that raised by 121 companies in the first quarter of 2007, and 23
percent above the previous quarter's amount raised by 115 companies. |
| (Source: AltAssets, 2008-04-29) |
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| John
Thornburgh |
Harry
Gonso |
John Thornburgh and Harry Gonso,
both partners at Ice Miller, along with Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, Secretary of Commerce Nathan
Feltman, the presidents of Indiana and Purdue universities and John Diekman, founder of an early
stage life science venture capital fund, will speak at the fourth and final program in the 2007-08
Indiana Life Sciences Collaboration Conference Series.
Find out more information about this life sciences event.
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Brightpath Capital, Inc.
Ice Miller worked with Brightpath Capital, Inc., an Indianapolis-based private equity firm, during
their leveraged buyout of a Lemont, Illinois food redistribution company.
Brownstone Publishing (Angie's List)
Ice Miller provided legal counsel to Brownstone Publishing (Angie's List), an internet
consumer reporting service, during an equity investment.
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