Warburg Pincus Said to Return $6.1 Billion to Clients

Warburg Pincus LLC, the private- equity firm that owns Neiman Marcus and Interactive Data Corp., handed back $6.1 billion to clients last year as a stock-market rally drove sales of company shares, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Distributions to investors were 36 percent higher than the $4.5 billion in 2011, and exceeded the $2.3 billion Warburg Pincus invested in 28 new companies and several follow-on deals last year, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the information is private.

Jeffrey Smith, a spokesman for Warburg Pincus, declined to comment.

Warburg Pincus sold shares in public portfolio companies during the last three months of the year including Ziggo NV (ZIGGO), a Dutch cable company; Webster Financial Corp. (WBS); Primerica Inc. (PRI) and Intime Department Store Company Ltd. Warburg Pincus’s portfolio company Fidelity National Information Services Inc., a provider of banking and payment technology, in December agreed to repurchase $200 million of common stock from the private-equity firm’s ninth fund.

Warburg Pincus, which in September 2011 started seeking $12 billion for its latest fund, has so far closed on $7 billion, said the person.

The firm’s prior fund, which gathered $15 billion in 2008, was generating a 1.15 times multiple and a 5.5 percent net internal rate of return as of Sept. 30, according to performance data by Oregon Public Employees’ Retirement Fund.

To contact the reporter on this story: Sabrina Willmer in New York at swillmer2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Josh Friedman at jfriedman25@bloomberg.net