Quotes from Private Equity, Hedge Funds

LONDON (Reuters) - Following are key quotes from the Reuters Hedge Funds and Private Equity Summit in London. Below are some quotes from the summit's second day speakers.

ANDREW NEWINGTON, MANAGING PARTNER OF BC PARTNERS:

ON ASSET SALES OF DISTRESSED COMPANIES:

"Nothing much is actually happening. It will be tested over the course of the next 6 months. (The public market shareholders) do seem to be tacitly or directly encouraging companies to push hard with their banks, so rather than selling off the family silver, wait and see if you can get a better deal by deferring things."

ON ACTIVITY IN 2009:

"We won't see, as an industry, anywhere near the same volume of equity commitments as last year.

"We were not terribly active in 2007. We made one or two investments, but we didn't commit a huge amount of capital. So we could easily see us equaling those sort of volumes this year in terms of our own equity commitments. But for an industry at large, I certainly don't see that."

ON FEES:

"One thing we are certain to see in 2009 is very limited fundraising activity. So I don't think you'll have many test cases to benchmark what fees should be in the private equity industry.

ON REGULATION:

"Where we face a strong headwind is that there is clearly no political goodwill toward financial services in general and everyone within financial services is being lumped into the same bucket.

"So whether you're an investment bank, whether you're Fred Goodwin, whether you're a private equity firm or hedge fund, it doesn't matter, you appear on a placard at Canary Wharf with a noose around your neck, which isn't a very pleasant prospect.

ON DRAWING DOWN CAPITAL:

"If the entire private equity industry were to say, I'm drawing down 100 percent of available committed capital tomorrow you would have default rate of 20 to 25 percent rate, I'm guessing, but a reasonably high default rate because people don't have the cash today."

HUGH HENDRY, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF ECLECTICA ASSET MANAGMENT

ON LIMITING INVESTOR WITHDRAWALS:

"Anyone who has side pocketed large amounts of clients' money and gated them in has no future.

ON PERCEPTION OF HEDGE FUNDS:

"There is hysteria about hedge funds, with hedge funds being the fountain of all bad things.

"It's an easy political game. Hedge funds are by and large rich and British and therefore kind of confused about being rich and kind of apologetic about being rich and they don't talk."

RICHARD LAING, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF CDC GROUP

ON INVESTMENTS THIS YEAR:

"This year, up until the first quarter, we will be investing approximately 100 million pounds, and the first quarter is traditionally quite light.

"What we're seeing, and I have to say slightly to our surprise, is that transactions are still going on.

ON CHALLENGES ON PRIVATE EQUITY IN EMERGING MARKETS:

"The key impacts are lower export markets, and I think particularly with China, India, Africa; the nervousness of the banks to provide just working capital, and fund raising, it's just much harder."

ON CASHFLOW:

"I think the one thing that I have to keep an eye on is the cash flow issue, that the portfolio is spinning off less cash than it was. When cash comes in, we can to commit it, if cash is less than it was, we are going to have reduce our commitments."

ON REPUTATION:

"The reputation of private equity is not as sullied (in emerging markets) as here. We go and talk to entrepreneurs, and they love it because they really see it adding value to businesses."