Regardless of your political perspective, the impact of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“PPACA,” and commonly referred to as “health care reform” or “Obamacare”), on a business’s health care costs is something every buyer and owner of businesses should strive to understand.  This article briefly summarizes how private equity firms should think about health care reform when looking at acquisition targets and monitoring their portfolio companies and points out some red flags.

The ways in which private equity investors participate in the Chinese economy may be poised to shift from minority and non-control investments to control investing. As in many developing economies, private equity investment in China has been dominated by minority investments that have provided growth capital and pre-IPO funding to founders not willing to fully “cash out” or cede control of their high growth businesses. The slowing Chinese economy and the generational shift in Chinese business owners suggest to many deal professionals in China that there is likely to be a new wave of transactions in which control and possibly even complete sales of Chinese businesses will become prevalent.

The Chinese private equity market is one of the fastest changing in the world. Significant private equity activity in China has been going on for scarcely a decade, and in that short time there have been dramatic changes in the way that the market is regulated and in the way that it functions.

Co-investment transactions have become increasingly popular as investors search for yield.

Careful vetting of relative tax benefits and costs has generally been key in a private equity firm’s decision as to whether to request a section 338(h)(10) election in the acquisition of a U.S. subsidiary from a U.S. tax group.

Additional modifications to the framework for UK public takeover transactions, known formally as the City Code on Takeovers and Mergers (the “Code”), are expected to come into force early next year subject to the responses to the Consultation Papers published by the UK Takeover Panel on July 5, 2012 setting forth these modifications.

The German Ministry of Finance recently released a discussion draft of legislation to implement the EU’s Alternative Investment Funds Managers (AIFM) Directive in Germany.