Blog of Intellectual Capital

Seams like boyout funds are gearing up for a bullmarket.

“EQT Partners AB, the private equity firm partly owned by Sweden’s Wallenberg family, has told investors it may raise a new 4.3 billion-euro ($5.8 billion) fund for buyouts, two people with knowledge of the plan said.

The firm, based in Stockholm, could start raising money as early as the end of the year, said the people, who declined to be named because the decision hasn’t been formally made. The fund would be about the same size as the firm’s last one.

EQT, which closed its current fund, EQT V, in December 2006, would join London-based buyout firm BC Partners Ltd. in Europe in coming back to investors for a new pool as deal making is reviving after the financial crisis nearly halted it for two years. Unlike other firms, EQT has continued to spend investors’ cash during the recession, signing 11 deals since Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. collapsed in September 2008.

Johan Hahnel, a spokesman for EQT Partners, declined to comment today.

The Swedish firm in December agreed to buy 82 percent of German academic publisher Springer Science+Business Media GmbH. In November, EQT completed the acquisition of Polish lancet maker HTL-Strefa SA after buying two cable operators in Bulgaria, Cabletel and Eurocom, for 120 million euros in October.

Buyout funds seeking more than $1 billion now spend an average of 19 months courting investors, according to London- based research firm Preqin Ltd. Last year it took 16 months, compared with eight months in 2007 and five months in 2004 as investors are curbing new pledges, Preqin said.”

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