While we won’t expect Elevation Partners to say anything about it until the sale is complete, it looks like they’re about to walk away from Palm with a small profit. This flies in the face of sensationalist claims of partner Bono (yes, of U2 fame) being “the world’s worst investor,” though we imagine he, Roger McNamee, and the rest of Elevation Partners had hoped to make a bit more off the deal. Just how much is Elevation set to get when all is said and done? $485 million, according to Venture Beat.

That amounts to 40% of the $1.2 billion that HP is set to lay down to snap up Palm. The story of how Elevation’s getting more than their 30% share of Palm is an interesting one. Elevation’s initial investment in Palm in 2007 was to the tune of $325 million, which wrapped up 25% of the smartphone maker under Elevation’s control. Elevation has twice in the intervening years invested in Palm stock, upping their total investment to $460 million.

So luckily for Elevation Partners and all their investors, they didn’t lose money on this deal. Of course, if they’d sold their shares late last year when Palm stock was trading over $18, they could have brought in close to $1.5 billion. Yes, you’re reading that right, a third of Palm used to be worth more than what HP is paying today. That’s what happens when expectations are tempered by reality.

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A few months ago we were laughing at/with Palm investor Roger McNamee after his All Things D interview with Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg. And this year at CES, Palm saw fit to send just CEO Jon Rubinstein into the gauntlet, and even in the face of what some may call some rather nonsensical and unnecessarily combative and prying questioning from Swisher alone, he held up well. Sure, Swisher wanted to know what’s coming next, but Rubinstein would have nothing of it and refused to divulge any new details. That said, there were still some interesting things to take away from the interview, like Rubinstein’s admission of having never used an iPhone.

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If it weren’t for guys named Bono and McNamee, we wouldn’t even have Palm or webOS today. The guys at Elevation Partners have invested $460 million into Palm, and that investment would net them only $40 million were they to sell today. A 9% gain isn’t the kind of thing that attracts new investors, and the folks at Fortune believe that Elevation is on the prowl for more money – no company wants to sustain, they want to grow, even investment firms.

With 70% of Elevation’s initial fund already invested and little demonstrable success to show for it, they’ll have their work cut out for them should they seek more money. Then again, they’ve got Bono and Roger McNamee. Those two, along with the rest of Elevation Partners’ board, are clearly in Palm for the long term. Like we said, selling today would net $40 million in profit, but just two and half months ago they could have turned that investment into $330 million in profit. That 75% gain would have been more to investors’ liking, especially given that Palm is expected to continue burning through cash at a steady clip as they expand Pre and Pixi distribution onto new carriers in 2010.

[via: Palm InfoCenter]

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Well, last time we had news of a Pre using some kind of superpowers, was when some drunken idiot try to kill his Palm Pre by drowning the phone into beer. Heck, the Pre stayed up and running a little over a minute before going to cellphone heaven.

This time, someone try to kill his [...]

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After Palm announced the price of their new public stock offering, $16.25 per share, it looks like Elevation Partners and its directors have been busy buying it up, thestockmasters.com notes:

(Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein also made some stock moves.)

Meanwhile, Palm exercised an over-allotment option for the underwriters to purchase an additional 3 millions shares of common stock, which "brings the expected net proceeds of the public offering to $359.9 million."

Try not to let your eyes glaze over too much, the bottom line is that it’s a heap of cash for a company that’s been hungry for it. They intend to use it "for working capital and general corporate purposes," which to us sound like they have a plan and they’re executing against it.

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In a filing with the SEC this morning, Palm announced that the price of their secondary stock offering will be set at $16.25 a share, a discount of about 10% off yesterday’s 52-week high closing price. The offering has also been expanded from the 16 million shares that Palm announced during last week’s conference call, instead Palm will be selling 20 million shares of common stock, though the date for the secondary has not yet been set.

Palm is setting aside $35 million of the stock for purchase by venture capital firm Elevation Partners (who currently own approximately one third of Palm) and an additional $2 million for personal purchase by Roger McNamee, a founding partner of Elevation Partners. Three million additional shares of common stock will be available to the underwriters should the offering the oversubscribed (more buyers than available stock). At the 20-million share offering, Palm expects to net $313,140,000, if the over-allotment option is exercised Palm could see proceeds of up to $359,940,000. Either way, it’s a lot of money for Palm, who ended the last fiscal year with $211 million cash and cash equivalents on hand.

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That’s right metal heads, you read that title correctly. Roger McNamee, who goes by the alias "Chubby Wombat Moonalice" on stage, and his band Moonalice, will be opening for Metallica [PDF link] in San Rafael, CA on September 11th. The "once in a lifetime" concert is being hosted by the Marin History Museum to help raise funds for their upcoming "Marin Rocks" exhibition, and will be the first time Metallica has ever played in Marin county.

While Metallica needs no introduction, Moonalice is a relative newcomer on the music scene, having begun touring in May of 2007. Something of a hippie rock band, their main claim to fame is their use of seven, thats right, seven bassists, including Jack Casady, formerly of Jefferson Airplane. Our hero Chubby Wombat himself plays bass, guitar, and contributes on vocals. While venture capitalism is his career, it’s clear through interviews that music is his "other" passion.

So how about it folks, are any of you planning on checking out Roger and his merry band, or are you more interested in skipping ahead to the Metallica portion of the show? After giving a few of their songs a listen, I have to say they’re not half bad, though they’re very much the ying to Metallica’s yang. It should be an interesting show!

via @blam

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*GASP*

We’ve been trying to find video of these for over a week now and they’ve finally ended up on the YouTubes. They are Palm commercials that instead of creeping us out actually talk about the Pre’s unique features. The video above is for Synergy’s linked contacts, though you have to really be paying attention to notice she’s showing that the contact linked to Facebook, Google, and Exchange.

One more commercial after the break

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The full All Things D (D7) chat with Palm Chairman (now CEO) Jon Rubinstein and Elevation Partners investor Roger McNamee has been posted on the All Things Digital website. It’s chock full of now-broken iTunes synchronization goodness, Roger McNamee’s accidental chauvinism, Kara Swisher’s ripostes, and Walt Mossberg looking decidedly more magisterial here than he does in more recent internet incarnations.

It’s nothing new, but hey, now you can see the whole thing and figure out whether you want to laugh or cry during the iTunes demo.  Plus, you get another chance to watch McNamee and Rubinstein ham it up together. It’s over fifty minutes long, so grab your coffee first.

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The funny man himself had some interesting things to say in this video that was shown before the Palm keynote at D7 today. The Palm Pre apparently has a ton of capabilities that only Roger is aware of. Who knew?

Video after the jump.

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