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Madison Dearborn Partners, one of the private equity firms involved in the pending acquisition of Bell Canada Enterprises, is attempting to raise about $10 billion for its buyout fund, but had raised just $4 billion as of mid-April, according to The Deal.com. This report and others point out that times are tough for private equity firms looking to build up their funding coffers and pursue more leveraged buyouts.

The BCE deal has been viewed as the largest leveraged buyout in history, and was announced last summer at what some people thought was the tail end of heavy pursuit of telecom acquisitions by private equity firms. Several P.E.-funded deals were announced in the year or so leading up to late 2007, and some industry observers predicted the deal flow to slow this year. Still, Windjammer Communications, a joint venture involving a private equity firm, just acquired systems from Time Warner Cable.