Bono set for small profit

U2 singer Bono is set to make a small profit from the sale of smartphone-maker Palm to Hewlett-Packard as part of a €900 million deal but analysts say he won’t be happy with the return.

Bono is an investor with venture capital firm Elevation Partners, which has invested about $460m (€347m) in Palm since 2007, but is set to turn a profit of just $25m (about €19m) on its sale. Bono co-founded the firm with Roger McNamee.

The small profit from the deal is not the kind of gain that investors in private-equity firms expect, according to Steven Kaplan, a professor of finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.