Deals
Funds managed by Värde Partners have completed the acquisition of FirstCity Financial Corporation.
Mark B Horrell, who previously served as senior vice president and head of US acquisitions of FirstCity, has been appointed chief executive officer of FirstCity, succeeding James T. Sartain. Sartain will retire and join Värde as a consultant.
Terry R DeWitt, senior vice president and head of global acquisitions of FirstCity, and James C Holmes, senior vice president and managing director of FirstCity, will become chief credit officer and chief operating officer, respectively, and will assist Horrell in leading the operations of FirstCity. FirstCity will
Scarosso, the online shoe brand, has raised series A funding from a syndicate of investors led by DN Capital. DN Capital was joined in the round by IBB Venture Capital Company managed Kreativwirtschaft Berlin, Perikles Ventures and other local angel investors.
The financing will support the launch of new collections, in particular a new women’s collection designed by Marco Censi and Guillaume Hinfray. It will also allow Scarosso to accelerate the development of its retail operations. After the launch of Scarosso’s first store in Hamburg, the company is planning a further opening in Berlin in coming months.
Scarosso was founded in
Private equity funds that closed in 2012 secured on average 44 per cent of their target capital by the time they held a first close, the lowest proportion in the period since 2006, according to a study by Preqin.
In addition, private equity funds closed in 2012 took an average of eight months to reach a first close, compared to five months for funds that closed in 2006.
However, evidence from 2012 suggests reaching a first close quickly can increase the chances of overall fundraising success. Fifty eight per cent of funds closed in 2012 that held a
Private equity firms GMT Communications Partners and Veronis Suhler Stevenson (VSS) have teamed up with management to provide growth capital to IT-Ernity, a provider of business critical managed services and shared hosting for SMEs in the Netherlands.
Founded in 2002 by its managing director Sebastiaan de Koning and R&D manager Tom Pfeifer, IT-Ernity offers a catalogue of standardised fully managed solutions, including system administration, protection, security, application management and other outsourcing services. Through the shared services and connectivity categories, the company offers shared hosting, domain registration and secure infrastructure connectivity through xDSL and fibre. Since 2008, the company has
While the first quarter of 2013 saw the lowest number of deals in the offshore region since Q1 2008, the offshore M&A market has performed better than the global average, according to a report released by Appleby.
The latest edition of Offshore-i, the firm’s quarterly report which provides data and insight on merger and acquisition activity in major offshore financial centres, focuses on the first quarter of 2013.
The report shows that both the volume and value of deals involving offshore targets dropped considerably in Q1 2013 as against the preceding quarter, with volume down 28 per cent
Avenue Capital Group has acted as sole lender and agent in connection with the debt financing of the acquisition of Freedom Finance Nordic, the largest prime consumer loan broker operating in Sweden, Norway and Finland, by HIG Europe.
Avenue also has made a minority equity investment in Freedom Finance Nordic alongside HIG Europe, the European arm of global private equity firm HIG Capital.
The debt facilities provided by Avenue consist of a unitranche acquisition facility and a revolving credit facility. They closed in early May 2013.
"Avenue is very pleased to have been able to provide the
The average holding period for private equity-backed portfolio companies increased year on year between 2008 and 2012, according to research carried out by Preqin.
Mega deals (over USD1bn) exited so far in 2013 had an average holding period of 6.2 years, up from just 2.1 years in 2008.
Increased average holding periods have impacted the amount of capital distributed back to investors. After six years, 2001 vintage buyout funds had distributed 95 per cent of paid-in capital to investors, compared to just 33 per cent of paid-in capital after six years for vintage 2007 buyout funds.
A
Private equity firm AnaCap Financial Partners has sold Cabot Credit Management (CCM) to funds managed and advised by JC Flowers & Co.
The transaction agreements have been signed, and the transaction is expected to complete imminently.
CCM was formed after the merger in April 2011 of two businesses, Apex Credit Management and Cabot Financial, purchased by funds advised by AnaCap and its coinvestors, Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners and Partners Group.
Following the integration of the two businesses, backed by AnaCap’s intensive operational engagement, CCM has become a market leading acquirer and manager of consumer debt with over
Zoove Corp has secured an investment of USD15m from existing series D investors, Rogers Venture Partners and Panorama Capital, along with additional investment from the company’s early stage investors, Worldview Technology Partners and Highland Capital.
This new funding will allow Zoove to expand through all areas of the business, with emphasis on product expansion, business development and marketing.
After securing relationships with all four major mobile carriers, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless, Zoove became the first and only organisation to offer unique vanity mobile numbers that allow brands to provide any content experience to consumers via a
A dearth of debt to support transactions hit the values being paid for private equity deals hard in the first three months of 2013, according to BDO’s latest Private Company Price Index/Private Equity Price Index (PCPI/PEPI).
The index, which compares the EV/EBITDA ratios being paid on the sale of private companies to trade (PCPI) and private equity (PEPI) buyers, showed a sharp contraction of the values paid for private equity deals of 36 per cent from 12.0 in Q1 2012 to just 7.7 in Q1 2013, its lowest point since Q4 2009. At the same time, the number of
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