'Pass the Cookies' - Goldman Sachs Raises $20 Billion Buyout Fund
Goldman Sachs has raised USD 20 billiion for its latest fund for buying, stripping and selling businesses, more than doubling the USD 8.5 billion it raised last year and beating the USD 18.5 billion Blackstone has raised to date in its latest effort.
"My guess is you will see someone in the next 12 months try to top this Goldman deal," said Colin Blaydon, director of the Center for Private Equity and Entrepreneurship at Dartmouth College. "When the cookies are being passed around you'd better take some, because you don't know when they're coming back around again."
Buyout funds in 2006 raised over USD 700 billion - an amount equivalent to buying the national economy of the Netherlands, or the economies of Argentina, Poland and South Africa combined - with billions of dollars to spare.