Friday, February 25, 2011

Soros and Former Obama Admin's Cathy Zoi Join New Private Equity Fund

From Forbes:
Private equity firm Silver Lake is launching a new fund, Silver Lake Kraftwerk, with billionaire financier George Soros to invest in clean energy businesses.

Silver Lake manages $14 billion and has offices in both Silicon Valley and China. The new fund will focus on providing growth capital to companies that “leverage technology and business model innovation to improve energy efficiency, reduce waste and emissions, harness renewable energy, and more efficiently use natural resources, among other applications,” according to Reuters.

In addition to Soros, the new fund also secured a commitment from Cathy Zoi, who recently resigned as the Obama administration’s acting under secretary for energy and assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy, to join the fund in April. Zoi earned her spurs working for Al Gore as a climate-change crusader and has since ascended the ranks to become a star in her own right at the U.S. Department of Energy....MORE
For more on Ms. Zoi see our May '10 post "The Company you Keep: 'Bloom, Fisker and Serious Materials Raising Cash from Advanced Equities'".