Merrill's Boston joins CP Eaton to lead private equity

According to CP Eaton, Boston will have "responsibility for leading the firm's global private equity fundraising business."

"I joined CP Eaton for the opportunity to be a partner at a high-quality and global institutional fund raising firm," Boston told AVCJ. "Having worked at larger investment banks, I have long sought to be a part of a focused fundraising business without the distractions of being within a huge diversified bank."

Prior to joining Merrill Lynch in 2004, Boston was MD and Global Head of Citigroup Global Markets' Private Equity Fund Group. A frequent visitor to Asia Pacific, he has been associated with fundraisings for firms such as CVC International, Emerging Capital Partners, ePlanet Ventures, and Terra Firma Capital Partners.

"All of the senior professionals of CP Eaton have an ownership stake in the firm, which means that every employee is more focused on meeting the needs of clients rather than the needs of a bank's senior management," Boston continued. "The timing for joining CP Eaton seems ideal to me - I expect the fundraising market to strengthen during the last quarter of 2010, and for 2011 to be a rebounding year."

CP Eaton claims to have raised over $33 billion to date for 57 alternative investment funds, and is currently targeting $8 billion for 14 vehicles. Previous reports indicated that Bank of America, Merrill Lynch's new owner, was winding down its placement business, leading to the departures of MDs Michael Ricciardi, Enrique Cuan and Alan Pardee to form their own placement firm, Mercury Capital Advisors.

Boston pointed out some of the likely advantages of Asia Pacific fundraising to AVCJ. "From a short-run perspective, I expect that Asia Pacific will face the same cyclical issues as the US and European fundraising markets. However, over the next five to ten years, the center of gravity in fundraising will increasingly shift toward Asia - where demographic growth and the flexibility of private capital will make for more attractive investment opportunities than in more mature markets. Having lived in Hong Kong and traveled throughout Asia, I am a believer that the time has come for a greater role for private equity throughout the region."

However, he did caution against expecting too early a rebound. "Limited partners are today being very cautious - as you know, private equity fundraising tends to lag the public markets by about six to nine months. If the public markets rebound later this year, as expected, then in 2011 allocations will improve and distributions to LPs will increase, providing fresh capital to be recycled into new fund commitments."

Additionally, Dave Love, the head of CP Eaton's Asian strategy, offered this thought:

"LPs globally, including investors in the region, increasingly recognize that Asia, particularly China, is the key driver in the global economy.  GPs, both offshore and in Asia, clearly are responding to this in numbers, size and sophistication.  We at CP Eaton see our presence in Asia with an office in Shanghai as a significant advantage."

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• North America
• Citigroup Venture Capital International Asia
• Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity