The new internet investment fund set up by Cheapflights executives David Soskin and Hugo Burge is ready for business. Read more

The farce battle to buy the Italian government’s stake in troubled airline Alitalia signals a new level of exuberance among investors. Read more

No journalist likes having to apologise, but when mistakes are made, they should be corrected decisively. So respect to Financial News editor Will Wright, who wrote a lengthy apology to the private equity industry in a recent editorial. Read more

Matrix’s Vikki Castles has taken a long position on the beauty market, and has gone that little bit further in support of portfolio company Racoon International. Read more

US online marketplace MFG.com’s second round of fundraising this month is one of a growing number of venture capital deals completed by former entrepreneurs. Read more

As part of its attack on the private equity industry, the GMB union has argued for the end of tax relief for interest payments on loans used in buyouts. Read more

At a time when the private equity industry is in need of a confident and forthright champion to stand up to its critics, EVCA is having something of an image crisis. Read more

Just three days into 2007, and plastic electronics company Plastic Logic has smashed the venture fundraising record of the last six years (see Done Deals, p23). The $100m (¤77.3m) financing round was the largest single amount raised for any European IT company since December 2001 (see table, below). Read more

The decision by former BP chief executive Lord Browne to join Apax Partners is further affirmation that private equity now represents the pinnacle of corporate aspiration. Read more

News that Goldman Sachs has put restrictions on co-investment clubs in its sale of General Electric’s plastics division is expected to spawn a stream of copycat decisions that could impinge on the future of the club deal. Other investment banks are already understood to be advising clients to avoid certain investor pairings and to ensure that consortia are unable to merge midway through a sales process. The move is a consequence of the US Department of Justice’s probe into club deals, which was trailed by an analysis of the dangers of co-investment in Real Deals three weeks earlier (Cover story, 7 September, inset). But what neither GE’s provisions nor, as yet, the Department of Justice’s probe have addressed is the practice of post-equity syndication, in which the winners of an auction parcel out slices of their newly acquired asset to losing investors. Read more