Despite the constant flux and uncertainty of the financial markets, private equity executives are weathering the storm without much concern, according to this week’s Dow Jones Private Equity Analyst Conference.
“People are in a much calmer state of mind than the general public or Wall Street commentators,” D. Malcolm Wright, a partner in the private equity group at KPMG who conducted the interactive survey, told VentureWire.
Despite the calm, John Snow, the chairman of private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, says the credit markets are essentially frozen, according to The New York Times. “Unless we get this fixed pretty soon, we’re in for a big, big, deep slowdown, he said to Bloomberg.
Attendees at the conference said they were relatively optimistic for returns for U.S. private equity funds raised between 2005 and 2007, with 51 percent betting that although returns will not reach ideal levels, they will suffice, according to Seeking Alpha.
Sixty-seven percent of attendees predicted that the deal flow will remain inconsistent in 2009 as buyers and sellers are forced to deal with the effects of the economy.