His Name is Bonderman, David Bonderman
Last week I blogged about the largest LBO in history. KKR and TPG (two huge American private equity firms) recently bought TXU, a Texan energy utility.
This deal was touted as a green LBO, because KKR and TPG agreed to freeze plans to build eight coal power plants and also invited a new board member onto the TXU board, William Reilly. Reilly has served as the chairman of WWF. Kauppalehti wrote about this in February.
After blogging about this deal, I emailed a friend of mine; he is an investment banker in New York, specializing in LBOs. "They've done the math", I argued, and said the financiers probably weren't doing all these good things just out of the goodness of their hearts. But perhaps I was wrong.
My friend blackberried me back, saying these green issues have been a "roadblock" to a deal for years (not sure what that meant -- we debated this stuff in December, without coming to any kind of conclusion. Still hoping for an invitation to his wedding, though...)
Anyway, I asked him about the deal because I wanted to know if he thought the TXU buyout signified a sea change on Wall Street. He wrote back with more information, all publicly available, but it has mostly gone unmentioned in the press.
Apparently, the major reason why the TXU deal was so "green" is, in fact, that David Bonderman, one of the founders of TPG (and the new owner of TXU) has been a board member of WWF, American Himalayan Foundation and the Wilderness Society.
Bonderman is not only a hugely successful investor -- he also sports a serious activist streak, of the suit-and-tie kind, and he pushed his agenda through in a big way, supported by pressure from numerous environmental groups.
Of course reducing emissions makes economic sense as well, especially in the longer haul, but certainly there's more than a pinch of goodness of heart there, too.
2 comments:
Anyone who knows Bonderman as an "individual" will report this guy is for real - he truly cares about these (environmental) issues and for those in the environmental activist community, it is great to have a shrewd (this is a compliment) business mind on the environmental side. More often than not, the scales are imbalanced when it comes to environmentalists vs. business. While we should not expect he will be blind to the needs of a business (which will at times clash with the desires of environmentalists), he is certainly an asset for the environmental team. It takes profit to make change, otherwise activism remains "vocal only." It is also an interesting note that Bonderman does not wave his own flag on these points, you really have to dig to see his contributions because he does not publicize them. Once you research, you will see his efforts (WWF and others). Maybe (hoping), Bonderman will direct TXU in a broad effort of green energy from wind to solar. Imagine getting your monthly utility bill and it says (realistically) "1% of your energy this month came from green sources" - over time this grows to 5%, 8%, etc. This would be for all customers, not just those who elect it. There are plenty of legitimate medium sized green energy companies that can use the capital, management talent, and distribution now behind TXU. Maybe some "baby step" acquisitions in this regard will surface. Long term, this deal could turn out to be a boon for green energy. You do not put a WWF member on the board if you do not have positive intentions in this regard. Only time will tell. Let's judge early progress in 18 months.
Thank you for commenting. As you said, it is interesting that Mr Bonderman seems to work, to a large extent, under the radar screen -- granted one does not need publicity to accomplish these kinds of feats. These are indeed the type of individuals the world needs more of: people with vision, resources and drive to do what needs to be done.
I agree with you that it is all about the balance between business and the green movement. If memory serves me, our global energy demand is expected to grow by roughly 50 percent by 2030, and we need to keep producing more and more goods and services, but there are certainly ways to change how these things get done and make it more efficient and environmentally sound.
You brought up the idea of acquisitions of smaller green energy businesses. We did some energy scenarios here a while ago, and one of the roadblocks we projected was that small firms come up with great product/process ideas, but those remain in a niche market or never quite get off the ground because the firms lack capital, customer access, what have you. I was just reminded of that when you mentioned acquisitions, and how up-and-coming green energy firms could leverage the size of a firm like TXU. A firm the size of TXU would certainly overcome these funding, application, and dissemination issues surrounding new technologies -- it would hardly be an issue. Like you said, this is where people like Mr Bonderman can really shape strategy.
Regarding deal making in general, this interim period when so many other deals are still being pushed through regardless of their environmental or social impact is still a bit frustrating perhaps, but things will eventually have to change on a larger scale. We are really talking "emperor's new clothes" here. The TXU deal seems to be a really interesting marker of change.
For what it's worth, my understanding is that there are certainly conservative groups of bankers/financiers out there in the investment community who still consider these issues to be externalities that have nothing much to do with them. My friend from the blog entry -- incidentally, one of the smartest, most hard-working, best people I know -- gave me a hard time when I inquired how much -he- thought Wall Street had changed over the past five years; whether environmental and social impacts of a deal are incorporated into the valuation process, for example. He didn't think CSR issues play any role whatsoever in his line of work, and couldn't see how they could. Naturally, being right in the heart of it, he is looking at it from the point of view of what is considered par for the course right now. Afterwards I remember thinking that was perhaps a great weak signal: when an idea seems quite surreal, there might just be something to it. Just my two cents.
Thank you, anonymous, again for your insights.
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