Which top fund will go bust?

Warburg Pincus is the likeliest. They're betting 0.5-1B that MBIA, a bond insurer does well.

A hedgefund is shorting it like a mother f****.

MBIA already lost half it's stock value....

As for KKR, I'd say they have the same longevity as GS, regardless of what happens (aside from a depression).

From the reports I've read Warburg would definitely be in a very bad situation if the stock compeltely fell off.

that I am saying is that a 500mm writeoff (1bn worst case if they exercise options), while bad, will not kill an 8bn fund that is otherwise performing ok in its other investments.  They will just look stupid (and they will once the company is downgraded and goes under)

8bn? My bad in that case. I kept seeing their figures around 4bn, so with that number, a 25% loss would've been a serious hit.

I just posted this on another thread, but I think it's relevant.  You can look at companies owned by certain PE firms and predict which ones are screwed (as most posts above do), but if you take an "expertise" focus, maybe this would be a better way to look at things?  It seems unlikely to me that any of the firms above "goes bust" in the next 5 years, even, but the ones that are best equipped to use the economic situation at play to their advantage the best are likely to come out on top 5 years down the road--or, put another way, least likely to "go bust" in the sense of having subpar returns relative to their peers...

Yeah, the role that cap mkts play shouldn't be understated...given that the company a PE firm buys has to have strong enough cashflow to pay off debt, all the KKRs of the world care about is what the starting and ending price of their acquisition is (along with years the acquisition is held, too, obviously).  Debt and equity markets combined determine how "expensive" an acquisition is for a given level of EBITDA and growth (with an emphasis on debt--so that's why July/Aug hurt acquisitions)--how cheap can you buy a company and how much will it cost you to hold onto a sliver of the firm--and equity markets determine how much is made on the exit (which is why equity markets dropping 15% since October hurts the other end of the pipeline).  So today, two things will be major contributors to PE firms' success/failure in the coming months/years: creative financing will determine their ability to purchase companies that they see as undervalued without being killed by debt (see Warburg's recent deal for Lifecore); and operational expertise will allow them effectively grow companies in their portfolios, likely holding them longer than expected so that they can be sold for higher multiples 2-3 years down the road.  If we enter a recession (seems likely enough), the PE firms that know more than just how to get a deal through the pipeline and profit off of levering from cheap debt (from my highly biased background as a soon-to-be Bain alum, the Bains, Golden Gates, Berkshires, TH Lees etc.--firms that hire a decent proportion of management consultants--as well as the Cerberuses, Apollos, etc.--firms that have played the "vulture" role before--of the world stand to weather the current economic state best, in my mind...