As the third quarter fundraising by U.S. buyouts and mezzanine funds plunged 42 percent, down to $16 billion from the $27.8 billion raised in Q2, Bill Barnum, a partner at Los Angeles-based Brentwood Associates, foresees an even worse fourth quarter.
"I get the feeling that investors are getting a lot more careful," Barnum told Buyouts in the recent article "Fundraising's Comeback Falters in Third Quarter." "And it's probably going to be even worse in the fourth quarter. A lot of LPs are out of money by the end of the summer. In the end, that probably makes fund sizes a little smaller and the fundraising process a little longer."