News and Analysis

The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, one of Canada’s largest and most innovative, named Ron Mock to succeed Jim Leech as its president and CEO, according to a spokeswoman, Deborah Allan. Since 2008, Mock has been the pension’s senior vice president in charge of fixed income and alternative investments.

More mergers and acquisitions under $500 million are being pursued by companies in 2013 as low interest rates and a desire to seek out growth lure dealmakers, but major tie-ups remain less frequent than expected, analysts at Ernst & Young said.

Miami-based entrepreneur Manuel “Manny” Medina of Medina Capital has lined up an estimated $50 million from family and friends as part of an effort to raise $250 million for his first private equity fund, a source told Buyouts. It has been two years since he sold his information technology company Terremark Worldwide to Verizon Communications Inc. in a deal valued at $2 billion.

Pantheon Ventures has become the latest firm to announce plans to manage private equity for retail investors, in this case through target-date retirement funds whose sponsors wish to offer exposure to the asset class.

A company that conducts a dividend recap and then defaults on its debt fares no worse for its creditors than a company that defaults without a recap, Moody’s Investors Service Inc. reported.

Trilantic Capital Partners has added Greenhill & Co. as placement agent to help get to the finish line on its fifth fund, which has a $2 billion target. The firm is believed to have until July to wrap things up.

Higher sale prices for portfolio companies, fundraising success and favorable credit markets willing to support dividend recaps combined to lift the fortunes of the five publicly-traded buyout shops in the first quarter.

Ben Sullivan is stepping down as managing director and co-head of the fund placement group at Lazard Ltd, and plans to leave the firm in mid-June, Buyouts has learned from sources. It was not immediately clear what he plans to do next or why he’s leaving.

Two of the nation’s largest university endowments saw executive-level changes in the last week, including the surprise decision by Cari Lodge, the director of alternative investments at Tulane University, to join Commonfund, Lodge confirmed in an e-mail message. Lodge joined Tulane only in June 2012. It is not known when Lodge will assume her new duties at Commonfund, nor who will replace her at Tulane. Calls to both Tulane and Commonfund were not returned.