Merger and acquisition activity is expected to increase in 2013, according to a survey conducted by KPMG, the US audit, tax and advisory firm, and the research practice unit of SourceMedia, the publisher of Mergers & Acquisitions.  The survey of more than 300 M&A professionals in the US found that 76 per cent of respondents anticipate that their company will make at least one acquisition in 2013. According to 60 per cent of the M&A professionals, companies’ large cash reserves will drive deal activity and 40 per cent acknowledged favourable credit terms as a supporting factor. Opportunities in emerging markets

BuyBox, a social payment solution provider for e-merchants, has secured a EUR1.7m equity increase from Iris Capital and Midi Capital. This financing will be used to develop the product portfolio and international commercial deployment. Founded at then end of 2010, BuyBox is today a well used solution of social payment for e-commerce. The solutions from BuyBox allow e-commerce sites to natively collect and organise group payment, for example to buy a birthday present or an expensive item. BuyBox, distributed on Saas mode, is now deployed via well known customers such as Celio, Wonderbox.fr or Micromania. BuyBox is also distributed by

PineBridge Investments is to make an equity investment of EUR26m in Work Service, a temporary staffing and personnel outsourcing company in Poland. As a result of this investment PineBridge will hold 20.02 per cent of the company’s share capital and will have two supervisory board seats. The agreement is subject to customary merger control clearance in Poland. Equity capital for this investment will be provided by PineBridge New Europe Partners II, a EUR522m private equity fund investing in Central and Eastern Europe. Work Service operates in the large and rapidly expanding Central European personnel services market. The company is the

Enterprise cloud management company Intigua has secured USD8.6m in series A financing led by Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP) with participation from seed investors Cedar Fund and individual investors. Intigua aims to solve a major challenge faced by IT when transitioning critical applications to cloud infrastructures: how to extend deeply-embedded and critical monitoring, management and security technology never intended for the massive scale and dynamic nature of today’s private, public and hybrid clouds. Intigua virtualises the management layer, transforming management applications into on-demand data centre services that are more scalable and agile. This also enables IT to use their existing management

Avolon, the international aircraft leasing business, is to partner with Wells Fargo, a diversified financial services company, to form a new joint venture aircraft leasing business called Avolon Capital Partners (ACP). The formation of ACP is subject to a number of regulatory approvals. Since its inception in 2010, Avolon has raised a total of USD3.7bn of debt capital from a wide range of financial institutions, including Wells Fargo, which has been a significant lender to Avolon since January 2011.

The Frankel Commercialisation Fund, in collaboration with The Samuel Zell & Robert H Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, has invested in Fusion Coolant Systems, a developer of an advanced coolant and lubrication system that makes manufacturing more efficient.   The Frankel Fund’s USD80,000 investment was part of a USD600,000 series A round that also included the Amherst Fund, Spark’s Michigan Pre-Seed Capital Fund and previous investors. Part of a trifecta of student-led venture funds at the University of Michigan, the Frankel Fund is a pre-seed investment fund established to identify and

ORIX Private Equity has invested in R2integrated (r2i), a digital and social marketing agency. This investment will accelerate r2i’s growth and allow r2i to pursue acquisitions in the digital and social marketing industry within key US and international geographies. Headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, r2i is a digital agency that offers web content management, digital marketing, and social media expertise to a variety of clients from Fortune 500 companies to non-profit organisations. The current r2i management team, including Matt Goddard, chief executive officer, Dave Taub, chief creative officer, and Chris Chodnicki, chief technology officer, will continue to lead the company, which

M&A activity in emerging Europe last year was hampered by the drawn-out debt crisis in the Eurozone, political turmoil in some states and tough austerity plans introduced by local governments, according to a report from CMS and Emerging Markets Information Service (EMIS) DealWatch. According to Emerging Europe: M&A Report 2012, the number of M&A transactions in emerging European countries in 2012 neared 2,265, an almost 40 per cent decrease in year-on-year terms. The total value of M&A deals went down as well amounting to EUR121bn, with fewer mega-ticket deals than in the year before. Rosneft’s acquisition of TNK-BP, Russia’s largest-ever