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While the Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX) is primarily known as a private equity firm, this actually understates things. In fact, it is a diverse global platform that spans hedge funds, corporate advisory, and real estate investments.

Actually, the real estate segment is getting bigger. This week Blackstone announced that it raised a $4.3 billion real estate fund with the main focus on opportunities in Europe. It's called the Blackstone Real Estate Partners Europe III fund (for whatever reason, these funds can be a mouthful).

Bloomberg reports that Gome Electrical Appliances Holdings Ltd. may sell up to 20% of the company to Bain Capital. The asking price is said to be in the neighborhood of $500 million. KKR & Co. and Warburg Pincus are also said to be interested in the stake in Gome.

With more than 800 stores in 160 cities, Gome is China's second-largest electronics retailer, which makes it a tempting target for investors looking for alternatives to recession-constrained businesses in the United States, Europe, and developed markets in Asia.

The debate over the value of social networks will go on for months and perhaps longer. Operations like Google's (NASDAQ: GOOG) YouTube, News Corp.'s (NASDAQ: NWS) MySpace, Twitter, and Facebook have huge numbers of users. Facebook now has over 200 million users world wide.

But the websites have done poorly finding revenue models. Industry experts say that Facebook will bring in only $500 million in revenue this year and will probably lose money. That sales figure is remarkably low for a business with such a large audience.

It looks like investors couldn't wait to get a piece of SolarWinds Inc. (NYSE: SWI). The venture-backed tech company's IPO priced this morning at $12.50 a share, about a dollar more than expected. During the day, it went as high as $15.16.

That's great news for SolarWinds and its backers, but it may not be the long-awaited sign that the window of opportunity for IPOs is opening after months of being firmly slammed shut. SolarWinds has a 10-year record of profitability, a customer list that includes 80 percent of the Fortune 500, and the support of some of the sharpest venture capital investors around. If anything, its success suggests a sterling pedigree still goes a long way but riskier companies may have a harder slog on their way to going public.

OpenTable, which plans to launch its IPO this week, announced that the price range on the offering has gone from $12-$14 to $16-$18. In other words, there's quite a bit of investor interest in the deal. In all, the company plans to issue three million shares (about half of which will be sold by insiders of the company).

OpenTable operates an online network that manages reservations for restaurants. Some of the functions include table management, guest recognition, and e-mail marketing.

Founded ten years ago, OpenTable has been able to build a customer base of roughly 10,000 restaurants (processing three million diners per month). Keep in mind that there are 30,000 reservation-taking restaurants in North America.

While mega-deals made possible by cheap credit and lots of leverage may be a thing of the past, a biannual survey of M&A activity by the Association for Public Growth (ACG) and Thomson Reuters shows that dealmaking is expected to pick up, and even thrive in certain sectors, in the second half of 2009, according to BusinessWeek. An ACG spokesperson described dealmakers as "cautiously optimistic."

The recession has put company prices in the bargain basement -- buyout targets are suddenly affordable. Those buyers with cash in hand are expected to begin scooping up such bargains. Private equity firms are eyeing bankruptcy courts, on the lookout for distressed and busted companies, such as Polaroid and Stila Cosmetics that were snapped up recently.

The internet probably doesn't need another online photo site, but ScanCafe Inc. is not your typical online digital photo service a la Eastman Kodak Co.'s (NYSE: EK) KodakGallery and Shutterfly Inc. (NASDAQ: SFLY). As its name implies, ScanCafe provides photo scanning and restoration services. The Burlingame, Calif.-based company announced on Tuesday it has received $5.5 million in Series B funding in a round led by Sigma Partners. The company is using $1.5 million of that money to pay off debt, while also adding employees, investing in new technology and expanding its global reach.

ScanCafe allows people to mail in photos slides and negatives, then restores and organizes all images and provides customers with access to a secure online library to view, select and share the images. They are only required to pay for the images they keep, though with a 50% minimum commitment. All selected images are then burned to a DVD or CD and shipped back to the customer with the originals.

Digging a little deeper, this review of the service from News.com reveals that one of the ways ScanCafe is keeping costs of its service down is by outsourcing the scanning work to India, so anyone worried about sending precious photos halfway around the world (that's an estimate) will have to give some thought to using the service.

Continue reading at TechConfidential.com.

Madison Dearborn Partners LLC isn't letting the current environment get in the way of fund raising, at least not according to a report in The Deal. The private equity firm is looking overseas and is including sovereign wealth funds for a new private equity fund of up to $10 billion.

This also notes that the first round of the fund closed at $4 billion in mid-April with investments from existing limited partners. But there are also reported problems in the ability to raise funds if the sources are accurate.

The Deal is citing a "a well-placed source." Perhaps a memo should be passed out around the firm with the mere message, "Loose lips sink ships."

The Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX) has entered into its second large-scale alternative energy project. The private equity giant has announced that it will form a partnership with Windland Energieerzeugungs GmbH to complete the development and construction of Meerwind.

This is being billed as one of the North Sea's largest wind farm projects. The wind farm will comprise 80 wind turbines with a combined generation capacity of 400MW. The project will be located some 80 kilometers (approximately 49 miles) off of the northern coast of Germany in the North Sea and is expected to cost in excess of €1 billion (almost US$1.6 Billion) to build.

The area management plan for the future wind farms in the North and East Sea was introduced by the German government in July, 2008 and supports local government objectives in fighting global warming by reduction of its greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by the year 2020.

The wind farm will generate approximately 1.6 billion KWh annually and will provide enough energy to supply electricity to some 500,000 households.

This will be Blackstone's second significant investment in renewable energy after the financial closing of the $870 million Bujagali hydroelectric power station project in December 2007 by Blackstone's 80% owned portfolio company called Sithe Global.

If you have been following the alternative energy saga alongside ridiculous oil prices going from rising to high to astronomical, you've run across the name Tesla Motors. Tesla is a venture capital and privately funded auto maker that produces a high performance electric powered sports car.

The Tesla Roadster and soon to be sedan are now both now going to be manufactured in California, or so a report in the San Francisco Chronicle and elsewhere are noting. Governor Schwarzenegger included some incentives that have kept the electric auto maker from moving manufacturing to New Mexico (besides the Governator ordering one unit for himself). But it appears that the State of California is giving it more than mere tax incentives.

It appears that this is going to get equipment leases from the state, as well as additional grants. What is interesting here is that this gets the company even further on the map. There have been recent reports that Tesla was in the market for another huge financing. Whether or not that comes about now is not certain. Other reports show that the company may even supply battery units to Daimler or other car manufacturers.

What is becoming fairly certain is that Wall Street expects to see Tesla file for an initial public offering. As capital intensive as these businesses are, the company needs to have a steady vehicle (no pun intended) to be able to raise the capital it needs.

Think of the good news.... At least one US auto manufacturer will be considered cool.

Most private equity firms hunt for stable companies with stable cash flows that are either cheap or inefficiently operated. These companies can then be resold for more money or taken public, or the strategy can fit into the Warren Buffett time frame of "forever." Biotechnology has long been the realm for only public companies, but that is changing.

Private equity firm Warburg Pincus has already made some biotech plays that seemed to be a harbinger of the trends here, and even more so when you consider foreign drug companies buying US-based biotechs on the cheap with that US Peso of a currency we have.

A new fund called GANIC Pharmaceuticals has been launched this week, with Warburg Pincus as the main backer. the private equity firm made an initial investment in GANIC from the Warburg Pincus Private Equity X, L.P., a $15 billion fund which closed in April. As of now, we do not have any exact launch figures for the size of the investment that was given to GANIC.

GANIC's management is all former senior executives of MedPointe Pharmaceuticals and the company will will focus on building a substantial enterprise by acquiring revenue generating companies, portfolios, and/or products and by investing in innovation and acquiring pipeline development assets.

Read more at BioHealthInvestor.com for estimates of the size and strategies that the fund may employ.

LinkedIn is the social networking operator that just about every business person has received an invite to join from at least one person they know.

The company issued a press release this morning noting that it has secured $53 million in additional funding in a capital raise. This was its fourth and largest round of funding and is said to value the company north of $1 billion. What is perhaps more interesting than anything is that the finding was from a private equity-led group rather than from venture capital. Bain Capital Ventures, the VC unit of Bain, led the financing with additional reinvestment from the company's existing investors:

• Sequoia Capital,
• Greylock Partners,
• and Bessemer Venture Partners.

Over 23 million professionals use LinkedIn to keep in touch with old contacts, to reach new contacts, to problem-solve, and more.

To top matters off, CNBC hosted the head of the company, Dan Nye, earlier this morning and the hint of going public was much more than a hint. It seems like you can probably expect an S-1 filing with the SEC in the relatively near future if things continue, although that timing could be later in 2008 or into 2009 or even never. But the 'we are going for valuations much higher than this' line was a hard one not to notice. Personally, I'll go ahead and 'bet the over' that we see an IPO filing in the coming months as long as market conditions don't go further awry.

Back in May, there was word that a new commercial finance company called Tygris Commercial Finance Group was going to set a record with a $1.75 billion capital raise.

This morning, I received an email from a PR firm and then saw the press release. On June 6, Tygris closed with more than a $2 billion raise, setting an even higher record than expected.

Tygris is a commercial finance company that provides liquidity and growth capital to middle market companies throughout North America. Tygris has three commercial finance businesses: corporate finance, equipment leasing and asset finance, and small ticket leasing. Tygris has offices in Chicago, Stamford, CT and Parsippany, NJ.

If you are Sam Zell right now, you are probably sitting there wondering why on earth as an old billionaire that you thought an old world media property with very little in new media that you'd have to shrink and break apart to profitability was such a good idea. Tonight, that looks even more so the case.

According to MLB.com Tribune Co. rejected a no-tax proposal in the sale of Wrigley Field to the Illinois Sports facilities Authority, which also owns and operates the Chicago White Sox U.S. Cellular Field as well.

If you read the full article you'll see how this may also impact the sale of the Chicago Cubs as well. Zell announced in April 2007 that the Cubbies were to be sold. Interestingly enough, the Cubs are also in first place in the NL Central division.

United Rentals Inc. (NYSE: URI) has announced a major self tender offer this morning and is is seeing shares surge in pre-market trading. It isn't going private, but it is cleaning up its books and retiring a large portion of its common stock and preferred shares. It seems it is doing what the old private equity acquisition couldn't do.

The company has announced its plans to tender for up to 27,160,000 shares of common stock through a modified dutch auction. This will be at a price of not less than $22.00 and not greater than $25.00. Shares closed at $19.50 yesterday and its 52-week trading range is $14.83 to $34.98.

The number of shares to be repurchased in the tender offer represents approximately 31.4% of the total outstanding number of shares. If fully subscribed, the total purchase price for the common stock would be roughly $679 million. There is also the retirement of preferred shares outstanding as part of this deal, which ties into Apollo Investment Funds and the associated board members will resign from the board of directors as part of the transaction.

Continue reading the full details and analysis at 247WallSt.com.