FORWARD FEATURES CALENDAR

Deals

Completed stamp
Crescent Capital Group’s European Specialty Lending strategy has completed a unitranche financing to support the refinancing and recapitalisation of Interfloor Group Ltd.  Interfloor, majority-owned by Milestone Capital Partners LLP, also refinanced the mezzanine facility provided by Hutton Collins Partners LLP, which remains a minority shareholder. This financing is consistent with Crescent’s longstanding commitment to providing access to capital for middle market companies in Europe as well as the US. “We are pleased to have completed this unitranche refinancing with Milestone Capital in support of the continued growth of Interfloor,” says Christine Vanden Beukel, Managing Director and head of Crescent’s European
shaking hands
Peer-to-peer secured business spending platform ThinCats has partnered with ESO Capital Group to underwrite a regular series of large deals on the ThinCats platform.  The deal will initially involve GBP20m-GBP50m being deployed on the ThinCats platform but both partners expect this figure to rise significantly over the next few years.   Kevin Caley, CEO of ThinCats, says “We are delighted to be partnering with ESO. As a specialist in large, secured loans we are confident that ESO’s underwriting commitment will help us further strengthen our position as one of the leading players in the sector. This partnership will also allow
Announcement
Halesowen-based Vacuum Furnace Engineering (VFE) has secured a substantial funding package from banking group Santander and private investment firm SEA Equity. Prominent West Midlands businessman, Roy Kishor, has taken the role of Chairman and will lead the management team in growing the GBP10 million turnover firm in the longer term, seeing a big opportunity to expand its contract servicing and repair business, develop the next generation of vacuum furnaces and set up a new apprenticeship scheme in addition to its current business.   The Santander Corporate & Commercial Banking, Cornwall Street, Birmingham, team provided a growth capital loan, senior debt
Document signing
Trina Solar Limited has signed a framework investment agreement with PingAn Trust Co and Jiangsu Jiuzhou Investment Group to jointly develop selected photovoltaic power plants in China, with a total capacity of 500MW-1,000MW over the next three years. Under the terms of the agreement, the Investors will enter convertible loan arrangements with Trina Solar to support the development of downstream projects in China. The Investors are entitled to convert the loans into minority stake in the project companies at pre-determined time. The investors are also entitled to participate in the potential capital operation of the holding vehicle in the future.
Joe Bedford (pictured), corporate partner at law firm Stevens & Bolton who advised the management team of TGI UK on its recent acquisition by Electra Partners, looks at how the casual dining sector is attracting interest from private equity investors… Looking at trends over recent months and years, together with current market rumours of further activity, it is clear that private equity has been showing significant interest in the casual dining sector. 2014 ended with the acquisition of TGI UK by Electra but that was only the latest in a long line of casual dining deals, including Hawksmoor (Graphite Capital);
Guernsey’s Chief Minister, Jonathan Le Tocq, has held a series of meetings in Washington to boost the Island’s reputation as a leading international finance centre. A week after Guernsey and the USA signed an asset sharing agreement, the Chief Minister met with officials from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the American Bankers Association (ABA) and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA).  Dominic Wheatley, Chief Executive of Guernsey Finance – the promotional agency for the Island’s finance industry, says: “Guernsey’s finance industries have long had strong links with the USA and we very much welcome the Chief Minister’s visit.
Evercore and Luminis Partners have formed a strategic alliance to provide cross-border M&A advisory services.  The two firms will leverage their combined expertise and broad network of corporate relationships to provide independent, objective advice to their clients. Luminis Partners recently has been formed by Ron Malek, Simon Mordant and Jamie Garis to provide conflict-free advice to major corporations, private equity firms, institutions, and government bodies on strategy, mergers, acquisitions and divestitures, restructurings and capital markets activities. This strategic alliance will also include an investment by Evercore in Luminis Partners. The three founding partners of Luminis have worked together for 15
FF&P Private Equity (FPE), has backed the management buy-out of the human capital management software business, Kallidus Holdings Limited (Kallidus).  FPE has invested alongside the existing management team and will take a majority stake in the business.   Kallidus is an award winning provider of SaaS software solutions that helps organisations to recruit, assess, evaluate and develop employees of mid-cap firms across Europe employing between 500 and 10,000 people. The business operates in a large (over $9Bn) global and fast growing (over 20%) market. As an established and high growth player in the human capital management market, Kallidus offers a
Seaborn Networks (Seaborn) and Natixis have closed the debt financing for Seabras-1, a new subsea fibre optic cable system between the commercial and financial centres of Brazil and the US. Natixis acted as sole Structuring Bank, Underwriter, and Mandated Lead Arranger for the senior debt facilities. Given the involvement of the French export credit agency Compagnie Française d’Assurance pour le Commerce Extérieur (COFACE), Natixis also acted as COFACE Agent for the transaction.  Seabras-1 was developed by Seaborn, with equity being provided by Partners Group, the global private markets investment manager, as announced in January 2015. Natixis also acted as exclusive
Araxid Prime has closed a USD12.5 million Series A funding round led jointly by Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP) and Columbia Capital (ColCap).  The funds will be used to extend technology that is currently being used by leaders in healthcare and the public sector, and apply it to other industries such as retail, telecom and financial services. Araxid offers a next-generation SaaS-based technology for resolving linking, and privatising disparate identities stored in one or more databases – whether customers, partners or employees. It can be implemented as a standalone solution or it can be plugged into existing, on-premises Master Data Management

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