Liz Hoffman

2 days ago | semafor.com | Liz Hoffman |Ben Smith

New York City’s business community — stunned by the apparent primary victory of socialist Zohran Mamdani and fearing a leftward shift in America’s biggest city — appears to be abandoning its grudging support for former Governor Andrew Cuomo and organizing more desperately around Mayor Eric Adams in a last ditch effort to block Mamdani in November’s general election. Some of former Gov.

1 week ago | semafor.com | Liz Hoffman

When Blackstone went public this week in 2007, Tom Wolfe, author of The Bonfire of the Vanities, was on hand at the New York Stock Exchange. He told CNBC the private equity firm’s move to the public markets might spell “the end of capitalism as we know it.”It didn’t. But looking back, it marked the end of private equity as we knew it. Going public changed Blackstone and the rivals that followed it: KKR in 2010, then Apollo, Carlyle, and Ares.

2 weeks ago | semafor.com | Liz Hoffman

“There are five ways out,” David Rubenstein told me in Washington this week, ticking through America’s options to deal with its $37-trillion-and-rising national debt. The Carlyle co-founder was a debt hawk before it was fashionable, sounding the alarm in the post-2008 days of free money and Barack Obama’s technocratic optimism. The political center has shifted Rubenstein’s way with startling speed over the past 18 months. “One, you cut spending, but no one wants to do that.

2 weeks ago | semafor.com | Liz Hoffman

One of private equity’s favorite playbooks is about to get tested. Hellman & Friedman and Warburg Pincus are seeking a buyer for Edelman Financial Engines, a network of financial advisors they built by acquiring small teams and solo operators. The $8 billion asking price, related by people close to the process, struck a few bidders as ambitious. Edelman is a classic roll-up — a hot strategy in private equity over the past decade that hasn’t yet been validated by big exits.

2 weeks ago | semafor.com | Liz Hoffman

Warner Bros. Discovery’s split is the latest proof that conglomerates are deeply out of fashion. Glomming diverse operations together smooths out profits through business cycles. It mutualizes economic risk. But it also mutualizes scandal, tainting a corporate empire with the real or perceived sins of one subsidiary. And with President Donald Trump looking for points of leverage, corporate sprawl is a real liability.