Over the past few months, the IPO market has been perking up. And, with the recent surge in equities, the good times should continue, right?

Well, not necessarily. The fact is that investors are scrutinizing deals. Just look at yesterday's IPO of PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust (NYSE: PMT). In the offering, the company raised about $335 million. However, the goal was to get about $750 million. In other words, there was lots of investor pushback. Actually, on its first day of trading, the shares of PennyMac fell 4.5% to $19.10.

The company is a real estate investment trust (REIT) that is purchasing mortgages -- at discounts -- and trying to turn a profit. At the same time, PennyMac wants to get federal government support, such as from the loan modification programs. Oh, and the company also has notable backers that include BlackRock (NYSE: BLK) and Highfields Capital Management.

If I asked you to name two things currently in decline, you might very well say real estate and newspapers. Now, it looks like real estate brokers are kicking newspapers while they're down. According to a piece on Bloomberg, Richard A. Smith, the President of Realogy -- which owns Century 21 and Coldwell Banker, and is owned by Apollo Management -- says the company will shrink the portion of its branding budget devoted to newspapers by two-thirds next year, compared to 2006. Who looks for real estate in the newspaper anymore?

According to Smith, "It's going to be bloody. The newspaper industry is going to have to adjust."

This is just the latest in a whole series of news stories that have been coming for years demonstrating the decline and fall of the newspaper industry. Are the stocks of some top newspaper companies a good contrarian bet?

I consider myself a contrarian investor, but even I wouldn't touch these. The industry is in the midst of an accelerating downfall, and a lot of newspapers aren't earning any money now. Is there any reason to believe that the future is going to be any brighter?

As Warren Buffett has said, every time an elderly person dies, that's another newspaper reader gone who won't be replaced. Who wants to own a business where your customers die every minute and there's no one waiting in the wings to replace the revenue?

Decisions, decisions.

Suppose you have a wildly successful business in an ultra hot market. Time to sell?It's probably something to consider. Well, that's certainly the state of affairs in the private equity world.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the founder of Apollo Management LP, Leon Black, is mulling these kinds of cash-out issues [subscription required]. His private equity firm is one of the largest and has done deals such as for Harrah's Entertainment Inc. (NYSE: HET), Realogy Corp. (NYSE: H), and Nalco Holding Co. (NYSE: NLC).

Based on the market multiples -- such as for Fortress Investment Group LLC (NYSE: FIG) -- it looks like he can take home about $1.5 billion selling a minority stake of 10% but still keeping control of his destiny. To me, this is having your cake and eating it too.

What's more, by selling the stake to private investors, there's no need to go through the hassles of the IPO process. In other words, Black has more time to do deals. Although, if the Apollo stock is registered – which is likely to happen – it will become publicly traded within the year.

It's an interesting structure and is typical for small companies. As for Black, he does think out of the box and the back-door IPO does make a lot of sense.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.