Deals
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.
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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
GraphLab has closed a USD6.75m series A funding round led by Madrona Venture Group and NEA.
GraphLab is innovating on the popular open source distributed graph computation framework (graphlab.org) that is used millions of times per day to deliver recommendations through popular consumer services.
Founded by data scientist and entrepreneur Carlos Guestrin (pictured), who began the GraphLab open-source project five years ago, GraphLab is building a commercial product for applying advanced machine learning to massive graph datasets. The company is based in Seattle and will continue to actively support the open source GraphLab project.
"Data has
Carey Olsen has provided Channel Islands-specific corporate and regulatory advice to Silverfleet Capital in its GBP50m buyout of fund administration and private equity specialist Ipes, from RJD Partners.
The firm drew on its group expertise for the buyout field in a pan-Channel Islands legal team led by partners Tom Carey (pictured) in Guernsey and Guy Coltman in Jersey with support from associates John Scanlan and David Taylor. The team established the Guernsey acquisition structure, carried out due diligence and advised on the competition law and regulatory issues that were associated with the acquisition.
Silverfleet Capital is a private
Polaris Private Equity, a Danish/Swedish mid-market private equity investor, has acquired HTC Sweden, a developer and manufacturer of professional floor grinding systems and floor solutions.
Polaris has acquired the company from Håkan and Gunn Thysell, who founded HTC in 1987 and have remained majority owners with a 60 per cent stake. 3i Group and former management, who held 40 per cent, have also sold their interest in the company to Polaris, in what is the firm’s sixth platform investment since the start of 2012.
Headquartered in Söderköping, Sweden, HTC has been growing rapidly in recent years, driven by expansion
The number and size of US sponsor-backed going private transactions were each lower in 2012 than in 2011 and 2010, according to a report by law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges.
However, when excluding the soft first quarter of 2012, deal activity was on par with such earlier years.
Specific performance “lite” has become the predominant market remedy with respect to allocating financing failure and closing risk in sponsor-backed going private transactions. Specific performance lite means that the target is only entitled to specific performance to cause the sponsor to fund its equity commitment and close the transaction
Petra Capital Partners has completed fundraising on Petra Growth Fund III with USD230m of capital available to invest.
The fund is structured as a small business investment company (SBIC) licensed by the US Small Business Administration.
“We are very pleased with the response from our existing investors and several important new investors for Fund III and the strong support we received from the SBIC programme,” says Mike Blackburn (pictured), partner at Petra.
On 3 May Petra closed on an investment in Denver-based Highstreet IT Solutions, representing the first investment for Fund III. Highstreet was recently formed by
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12 November, 2026 – 8:00 am
12 November, 2026 – 5:00 pm
