Pan-Euopean private equity investor Montagu Private Equity is to acquire St Hubert alongside the comany’s existing management team from Dairy Crest Group plc, for a consideration of USD430m in cash. St Hubert is a leading producer of standard and low fat spreads in France and Italy. Founded over 100 years ago, St Hubert is one of the leaders in the spreads market. It achieved over €130m sales and produced circa 35,000t of standard, low fat and innovative spreads in the year ended March 2012. Headquartered near Paris, St Hubert has its original production site near Nancy (Lorraine) and derives a

Skrill (formerly Moneybookers), the online payment company owned by Investcorp, has agreed to acquire 100% of paysafecard.com Wertkarten AG, an Austrian provider of prepaid vouchers that enable consumers to shop online. The total consideration for the acquisition is up to EUR140 million.   Paysafecard provides a prepaid electronic payment method. People who want to pay online, but do not have access to a credit card or bank account, or do not wish to provide card details on the internet for security reasons, can visit one of the 450,000 retail outlets linked to paysafecard and convert their cash into electronic money in

LogRhythm has closed a USD15 million Series D round of funding. Siemens’ Venture Capital group, which is a part of Siemens Financial Services, led the round, with participation from existing investors Adams Street Partners and Grotech Ventures. The additional funding will be used to further accelerate growth, product innovation and international expansion. "We are excited to partner with Siemens’ Venture Capital group, particularly due to the opportunity we see to collaborate in several of the key vertical markets that LogRhythm and Siemens both target, including healthcare and critical infrastructure," says Andy Grolnick, president and CEO of LogRhythm. "Network attacks and

Munich-based venture capital firm Target Partners (www.targetpartners.de) has made a seven figure Series A investment in Theva Dünnschichttechnik GmbH (Theva) (www.theva.de). BayBG Bayerische Beteiligungsgesellschaft (www.baybg.de) joins Target Partners as a co-investor in the Munich-based technology company. Theva is a specialist in 2nd generation (2G) high temperature superconductors (HTS). The funding will support development of production lines for 2G HTS tape for use in electrical power engineering applications. Over the past ten years, Theva has developed a proprietary, patented process technology for manufacturing 2G HTS tape designed for applications such as electricity transmission, generators and electrical systems. 2G HTS tape can

GCP, a provider of blended equity and debt to the UK’s small to medium sized businesses, has backed the MBO of Excelsior Technologies (Excelsior), a North Wales based flexible packaging manufacturer, from its North American shareholder. Excelsior designs and manufactures a portfolio of innovative packaging products and supplies to a range of blue chip clients across the food and medical packaging sectors, including Birds Eye, Haribo, Premier Foods and SC Johnson. Excelsior is an excellent example of a UK high tech manufacturer that operates on a global basis demonstrating excellence and innovation, with two previous Queen’s Awards for Export. In

MidOcean Partners and Crestview Partners ave entered into a definitive agreement with a subsidiary of Liberty Global, Inc and investment funds affiliated with Searchlight Capital Partners, to sell 100% of the parent of San Juan Cable, LLC, dba OneLink Communications for an enterprise value of USD585.25 million, or approximately 8.0x LTM Q1 2012 Adjusted EBITDA.  OneLink is the largest provider of cable TV, high-speed data and telephony services in Puerto Rico. MidOcean and Crestview, together with co-investors and management, acquired OneLink in October 2005 from Adelphia Communications. At the time, its services were limited to basic and digital cable TV and

Guardian Financial Services, the consolidator of closed assets in the European life insurance sector, is to acquire 300,000 in-payment pension annuities from Phoenix Group.   Phoenix Group will transfer approximately GBP5 billion of assets to Guardian to meet all future payments to the annuity policyholders. The deal will be completed in July. The companies will then work together to transfer the policies to Guardian under Part VII of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. Following the transfer, Guardian will manage approximately GBP13bn of assets on behalf of over 600,000 customers.   Cinven, the European private equity firm, acquired Guardian

AXA Private Equity has acquired a stake of 82.4% in Novotema Group, one of Europe’s leading rubber component manufacturers, from 3i. Novotema’s management team also invested, acquiring the remaining 17.6% of the business. Novotema is headquartered in Villongo, situated 60 km northeast of Milan. The company designs and produces rubber components for applications in the automotive, medical, gas control and industrial sectors. Founded in 1973, the Novotema Group currently employs 178 staff and generates the majority of its revenues in Germany (approximately 51%). The current management team, which has many years’ experience in multinational companies, will continue to manage the

Private equity firm ClearLight Partners has acquired a significant ownership interest in Consumer Safety Technology, LLC, manufacturer of the state-of-the-art Intoxalock breath alcohol monitoring devices. Commonly used by DUI offenders in order to retain driving privileges, Consumer Safety Technology’s core ignition interlock products prevent an engine from starting when alcohol is present on the driver’s breath. CST will use the investment from ClearLight to fund a range of attractive growth initiatives. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. “Consumer Safety Technology has developed industry-leading technology and has displayed a strong and consistent track record of impressive growth. We look