Deals
GCA Altium has acted as exclusive financial advisor to Livingstone Holdings Limited, a provider of software asset management services, on its sale to The Carlyle Group.
Founded in 2010, Livingstone offers a full range of services covering all major enterprise software vendors. The company works with clients to collect and analyse information in order to establish their effective licence positions, determine if software usage is higher or lower than legally contracted, address any related issues, and create a framework to optimise their software deployment over time.
Livingstone has delivered strong revenue and EBITDA growth over the past few years and now provides software
Law firm Stroock has represented Atlas Merchant Capital as co-lead investor in the acquisition of Talcott Resolution, the run-off life insurance and annuity division of The Hartford.
The total consideration to The Hartford of USD2.05 billion was comprised of cash, a pre-closing dividend, transferred debt and a 9.7 per cent ownership interest in the acquiring company; the transaction generated total value to The Hartford’s shareholders of approximately USD3 billion. The deal closed on 31 May 2018. Stroock’s deal team was led by insurance M&A partner Bernhardt Nadell and private equity partner Bradley Kulman.
Other Stroock attorneys who assisted on
Mekong Capital’s Mekong Enterprise Fund III (MEF III) has completed an investment in mattress and bedding solution provider Vua Nem Joint Stock Company.
Hoang Tuan Anh, Founder and CEO of Vua Nem, says: “We are excited about this partnership with Mekong Capital. They are the leading private equity firm in Vietnam who has a strong track record of investing in top retailing companies such as MobileWorld and Phu Nhuan Jewelry. Our vision is to become the biggest retailer for mattress and bedding products in the country. Thanks to the partnership with Mekong Capital, we have had access to the value
Knight Corporate Finance, a specialist TMT corporate finance boutique, has advised the shareholders of Frontier Voice and Data on its sale to technology solutions provider, Chess ICT.
Frontier was owned and operated by industry veterans Peter Southgate and Sean Linehan who have built a number of successful businesses in the comms sector. Knight CF has a long standing relationship with Peter and Sean having also advised them on the sale of Cable Telecommunications and Pink Telecom also to Chess in 2012.
Southgate says: “After a career in comms spanning four decades, we appointed Knight with a view to realising
Bilateral deals sharply increased in 2017-18 according to data from Investec, as private equity firms increasingly seek out direct sales in an effort to deploy dry powder without the competition of an auction process.
An analysis of 587 deals from 2016-17 and 2017-18 shows that the number of bilateral deals increased by 71 per cent last year relative to the previous year. The value of these deals increased from GBP1.06bn in 2016-17 to GBP7.98bn in 2017-18, with bilateral deals accounting for 19 per cent of all deals by value in the last financial year.
Christian Hess, Head of Financial
Goodwin’s Private Equity group led a multidisciplinary cross-border team as it advised long-time client GTT Communications (NYSE: GTT) on the completion of its acquisition of Interoute, for approximately EUR1.9 billion (USD2.3 billion).
GTT expects to complete the integration of Interoute within three to four quarters after closing.
The addition of Interoute significantly augments GTT’s scale, expanding its Tier 1 global IP network with one of Europe’s most extensive fibre footprints, strengthening GTT’s leadership in software-defined wide area networking and enhancing GTT’s global team with a world-class sales, operations and customer service organisation.
GTT Communications, Inc. provides multinationals with
Noerr has advised Daimler AG on an investment in Taxify. Daimler, whose mobility services portfolio includes Mytaxi and other ride-hailing services such as Clever Taxi and Taxibeat, now also holds an interest in ride-hailing provider Taxify.
Taxify operates predominantly in Central and Eastern Europe and in Africa. Chinese ride-hailing platform Didi Chuxing already acquired an interest in Taxify in 2017. With its investment in Taxify, Daimler is significantly expanding its ride-hailing portfolio. To date, Taxify has provided transport to more than 10 million passengers with more than 500,000 registered drivers.
Noerr partners Barbara Kusak and Dr Alexander Hirsch assisted
Mid-market private equity house Equistone Partners Europe has realised its investment in Travel Counsellors through a secondary buyout to Vitruvian Partners.
Travel Counsellors was founded in 1994 by travel entrepreneur David Speakman, and has expanded to include international operations in Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, South Africa, Australia and the UAE. In October 2014, Equistone backed a management buy-out of the business led by CEO Steve Byrne. Since then, the business has continued to experience rapid growth, with annual total transaction values growing by GBP130m to GBP512m. Statutory turnover and profit have also seen strong growth over the period, growing by
SK Capital Partners, a private investment firm focused on the specialty materials, chemicals and pharmaceuticals sectors, is to acquire SI Group, a developer and manufacturer of performance additives and intermediates.
Headquartered in Schenectady, New York, SI Group operates 20 manufacturing facilities on five continents with more than USD1 billion in annual sales and over 2,800 employees worldwide.
SI Group is being acquired from the descendants of W. Howard Wright, who founded the company in 1906. At the close of the transaction, SK Capital will combine SI Group and Addivant, a leading global supplier of additives including antioxidants, antiozonants, inhibitors,
Weinberg Capital Partners’ LBO fund WCP#3 has entered into exclusive negotiations with Vivarte Group for the acquisition of Besson Chaussures.
Besson Chaussures, a subsidiary of Vivarte Group since 1998, operates through a network of 133 physical stores and has recently launched an online sales website. Established in the early ‘80s by the Besson brothers, the brand generated total sales of EUR264 million in 2016/17. The company is based in Aubière (Puy-de-Dôme).
Following the completion of the transaction, WCP would become majority shareholder alongside Groupe Philippe Ginestet, the leading retailer in peripheral areas in France, through its Gifi, Trafic and
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