Private equity firms Kelso and The Carlyle Group have agreed to make a substantial minority equity investment in Sandler O’Neill, an investment banking firm specialising in financial services companies.  The firms expect the transaction to close at the end of the year. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.  

Wells Fargo Bank has launched a fund services product line within its corporate trust services business to address customers’ fund administration needs. Wells Fargo Fund Services provides fund administration services including a full suite of back, middle and front-office products and services to private equity firms, exchange-traded commodities, commodity funds,

Aureos Capital, a private equity fund management company focused on emerging markets, says it has seen a rapid acceleration in the number of full exits achieved from its first generation funds during 2010 compared with previous years. Speaking at the ninth Annual Aureos Investor Conference held at the Marriott Hotel

Oakley Capital Private Equity has invested in BDO Investment Management, a UK provider of wealth management and corporate benefits services, by acquiring an 84.4 per cent majority stake.   BDO LLP, the UK member firm of the BDO international network which is the world’s fifth largest accountancy organisation, will sell the

Axa Private Equity has acquired an 11 per cent interest in Arismore, a provider of information systems conversion and security. Created in 2002, Arismore focuses mainly on the architecture and control of information systems, access and identity management and the simplification of companies’ IT infrastructure. Arismore has also developed programmes

Venture capitalists put EUR916m into 198 deals for European companies in the third quarter in 2010, according to Dow Jones VentureSource. This is the lowest quarterly deal count for Europe since Dow Jones VentureSource began tracking the region ten years ago. Despite a 25 per cent drop in deal flow

Wellspring Capital Management has closed Wellspring Capital Partners V with capital commitments totaling USD1.2bn. Fund V is Wellspring’s largest fund to date, bringing the firm’s assets under management to more than USD3bn.  Fund V’s limited partners include institutional investors from the US, Canada, Europe, Japan and Australia.    The fund will

Emerging markets are generating increasingly high returns for private equity investors and could soon account for the lion’s share of deals, according to a study from IESE Business School and The Boston Consulting Group. However, the most attractive markets are not necessarily the ones that have captured the headlines in

RoundTable Healthcare Partners, a private equity firm focused exclusively on the healthcare industry, has acquired a majority interest in Salter Labs. Founded in 1976 by Peter Salter, Salter is a manufacturer of disposable respiratory and sleep diagnostics products used in both the home medical and acute care markets.  "Salter represents

Fortress Investment Group has priced Whistler Blackcomb’s initial public offering of 25,000,000 common shares at CAD12.00 per share. The offering will generate total gross proceeds of CAD300m. Proceeds of the offering will be used to facilitate the acquisition of a 75 per cent interest in the partnerships that own the