Billionaire Warren Buffet is most likely going to fail in achieving his target for the first time since he took over Berkshire Hathaway in 1965, Bloomberg reported.

Despite recording huge losses in 2013, gold and silver investments are seen increasing, and analysts attributed these to the improving major economies, including the US.

The African private equity industry in Africa may be young and subject to various shortcomings but political stability, infrastructure growth and increasing consumer activity has given it a more positive outlook for this year, the Financial Times reported.

The Wall Street Journal reported that institutional investors will best remember 2013 as a year of record gains, as buoyant markets facilitated IPOs and debt deals that paid hefty dividends.

Data from Cambridge Associates showed that 2013 was a good year for private equity as they returned $120 billion to their institutional backers, the San Francisco Business Times reported.

Indian companies were able to get private equity deals worth $10.68 billion in 2013, an increase of 12% in value terms compared to that of the previous year.

The global private equity industry closed 2013 with "dry powder" amounting to $1.074 trillion, a figure much higher than the previous record high of $1.067 billion posted before the 2008 global financial crisis.

Private equity companies are buying the debt of the companies they own so they can become creditors and have a second shot at making money on their investments.

India's Bombay Bullion Association, a traders' group representing 1,000 jewelers and traders, plans to buy a 5% stake in the Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd after the Forward Markets Commission said its founder was not eligible to run the bourse.

Private equity firms are increasingly seeking to partner with U.S. companies rather than buying them outright, as they struggle to find ways to put their huge piles of money to work at a time when frothy markets have made takeovers expensive.