Emerging Capital Partners, a private equity firm focused on investing across the African continent, has held the final close of its ECP Africa Fund III PCC with total commitments of over USD613m. Africa Fund III, one of the largest funds ever raised for investment across the African continent, marks the

New Rise Investments, a real estate syndication company, has launched an e-book entitled “Emerging Real Estate Markets: A Primer for Private Equity Investors”. The e-book can be downloaded at the New Rise Investments website. In this free-book, New Rise Investments gives high net-worth individuals a different alternative to the ups

Colorado State University and CSU Ventures have created CSU Fund I, a private equity investment fund that will help advance early-stage companies associated with CSU. CSU Fund I held its final close on 31 March. The fund has already made one investment and is evaluating several other investment opportunities. The

During the first half of 2010 almost one in ten (9.4 per cent) of UK mergers and acquisitions involved distressed businesses. Of the 1,491 deals completed in the UK, 141 involved companies acquired out of administration or other formal insolvency procedure, according to research by Experian Corpfin on behalf of

More than half (56 per cent) of US venture capital executives are more confident and optimistic about the industry today compared to a year ago, according to a survey by Polachi, a provider of executive search services to technology, private equity and venture capital companies. The survey found executives to

Arma Partners has acted as exclusive financial adviser to Lloyds Development Capital and the Easynet Global Services management team on the GBP100m acquisition of Easynet from BSkyB. Easynet is a telecommunications business that designs and manages data networks for large businesses as well as providing managed hosting and video conferencing

The Blackstone Group made a net loss of USD193.3m in the second quarter of 2010, compared to a net loss of USD164.3m for the second quarter of 2009. For the second quarter of 2010, total segment revenues were USD552.3m, up significantly from USD403.6m for the second quarter of 2009. The

GCP Infrastructure Investments has admitted 40,000,000 ordinary shares to trading on the Official List and to trading on the London Stock Exchange’s main market for listed securities.  The company has raised GBP40m through a placing and offer for subscription of 29,840,909 ordinary shares and the switching into 10,159,091 ordinary shares,

Copano Energy has issued USD300m of convertible preferred equity to an affiliate of TPG Capital, a private investment firm.  The series A preferred units were priced at USD29.05 per unit, a ten per cent premium to the 30-day volume weighted average price of Copano’s common units as of 19 July

MMC Ventures says it has attracted considerable interest in its new fund, an EIS venture capital fund specifically created for younger investors. The Growth Generation Fund, which was oversubscribed, closed today with over 60 new EIS investors. Rory Stirling, investment manager at MMC, says: “The interest in the MMC Growth