What’s Cooler Than a Million Dollars?

Facebook employees are about to find out what turned their boss on about a billion dollars. The company is looking to unload around $1 billion in employee-owned stock, as the worker bees who have sacrificed cash for years look for a bit of upside. And, Facebook is doing it in style.

The social media company is looking to help its devoted employees cash out of some shares at a valuation of $60 billion … that’s “cool” 60 times over. It’s also a 20 percent jump over the company’s previous valuation of $50 billion.

Asia Environmental Fund Closes with $250 Million

Olympus Capital picked up the last of the money it needed to close its Asia Environmental Partners fund. The group received a $25 million commitment from the IFC, a member of the World Bank Group. The fund invests in Asian renewable energy companies.

GreenHunter Divests Chinese Wind, Picked up by Local VCs

Caveman 92223, via Flickr

Clearly, the Chinese venture capital market is hot right now. In addition to sinking some hefty scratch into local ventures — along with the Chinese and provincial governments — the VC community is on the prowl for more. When U.S. renewable energy producer GreenHunter Energy was ready to sell off its minority stake in Guangdong MingYang Wind Power Technology, it found a buyer in Chinese growth venture firm DT Capital Partners, which agreed to play for $9.1 million.

GreenHunter Energy picked up its stake in the Chinese manufacturer of industrial-scale wind turbines back in late 2007. It seems pretty safe to infer that the company made the move back then because the U.S. equivalent wasn’t far enough along. Now, says CEO Gary Evans, the U.S. wind turbine biz is far enough along, making it preferable to owning a piece of a Chinese company.

Where I Write

A friend of mine e-mailed me last week to ask where I write. He can’t sort it out through all the tweets and links and so on. I can understand; I’m all over the place. So, if you’re interested in following my work, see the following links:

Gadling (travel): http://www.gadling.com/bloggers/tom-johansmeyer (If you want to read about hostels and backpacking, go read someone else. I tend to roll upscale)

Luxist (art and cigars): http://www.luxist.com/bloggers/tom-johansmeyer/ (Occasionally, I do a luxury travel or real estate story here, too)

BloggingStocks (finance, economics and markets): http://www.bloggingstocks.com/bloggers/tom-johansmeyer (I do a bit on the clean technology sector, venture capital, private equity, hedge funds and social media for this blog, in addition to all my work as a generalist)

DailyFinance (finance and economics): http://www.dailyfinance.com/bloggers/tom-johansmeyer (I don’t have a specific beat, though I do write a lot about cleantech, social media and the alternative investment space)

Envy (travel): http://envymags.com/index.php?s=johansmeyer (It’s not a regular gig, but I am starting to do more with this magazine)

Gotta Love the Ayn Rand Crowd

The so-called “Objectivists” are easy to manipulate. All you need to do is post a story with the slightest dig at Ayn Rand, and they mobilize online, rewarding your rudeness with plenty of traffic and comments. Whenever one of my sites needs a little surge, I write about Ayn Rand (as I’m doing now). So, when I had the chance to cover a private equity fund named for Howard Roark for DailyFinance, I jumped at the opportunity.

It didn’t take long for me to pick up a few Ayn Rand-related followers on Twitter, and several comments materialized on the website almost immediately. Fun stuff.

Funny “Art” Investor

I went to the Cleantech Venture Day conference yesterday in Stockholm, Sweden. In general, there was some interesting stuff, but the best conversation I had was with a venture capital/private equity investor. I asked the guy if he invests in art. A large grin formed on his face, as he nodded. Apparently, this was a subject close to his heart. So, I asked for a bit more detail, and the gump was more than willing to talk.

The future of private equity

After having taken a break from recreational financial writing, I’m finally back in action on Digital Journal. Using the latest data from Private Equity Intelligence, Ltd, I have written about private equity inflow trends and the differences in how North Americans and Europeans invest in China.

Read “Private Equity Tides Are Changing” >>

Read “Americans and Europeans See China Differently” >>

New Digital Journal Article: Private Equity Fundraising

Well, after a brief break for the 4th of July, I’m back in action. Since Digital Journal showed me some love this week with a TopFinds Award, I’ve decided to give them some more material. My latest article is on private equity fundraising. More than $160 billion was pulled into private equity funds in the second quarter of 2008, making it the second-highest on record.

Check out the whole article >>