Global alternative asset manager The Carlyle Group has acquired The Sniffers, a Belgian provider of emission monitoring and related services to the global oil and gas industries, from majority owner Creafund. Creafund and The Sniffers’ management team will continue as minority owners. Equity for the investment comes from Carlyle Europe Technology Partners II. Terms of the transaction, which closed on 21 December 2011, were not disclosed.   Founded in 1991, The Sniffers is one of the largest providers of fugitive emission monitoring outside the United States and has a premier market position in Europe and the Middle East. Fugitive emission

DNV has acquired 74.3% of KEMA’s shares. The new combined company DNV KEMA will consist of all 1,800 KEMA employees and 500 employees from DNV’s renewable energy and sustainability activities. The new company will be led by Thijs Aarten, the CEO of KEMA, and headquartered in Arnhem, the Netherlands.  Aarten will report to a Supervisory Board chaired by DNV CEO Henrik O. Madsen. “By joining forces, 2,300 experts will meet the needs of an industry in rapid transition and growth,” says says Leif Arne Langøy, the Chairman of DNV’s Board of Directors. “The combination of cleaner fossil-fuel-based power generation and

Perusa Partners has held a EUR200 million first and final closing of Perusa Partners Fund 2, a Guernsey limited partnership managed by Guernsey-based Perusa Partners Management Limited. Perusa believes that the success and fast-pace of the fund’s final closing is attributable to significant support from existing investors, combined with exceptional interest from new ones. Allocation to new partners was limited to select, high quality, long-term institutional investors. Subscribers to the Fund included pension funds and insurance companies from Australia, the Netherlands, Nordic countries and the US. The target and hard cap of EUR200 million was self-imposed by Perusa in order

Denver-based private equity firm KRG Capital Partners (KRG) has completed its sale of Avizent to York Risk Services Organization, Inc, a portfolio company of ABRY Partners. The all-cash sale closed on, 2011 and represents KRG’s third successful exit in its USD715 million Fund III. Avizent, headquartered in Dublin, Ohio is a fully integrated national risk management provider serving the workers’ compensation, auto and general liability segments. Avizent’s innovative service offering includes third-party claims administration (TPA), medical managed care services, network PPO access (including diagnostic scheduling services) and alternative risk solutions. Unlike most of its competitors that outsource most or all

Manfield Partners has acquired two packaged food businesses – MCM Select Foods Limited in the UK and MCM Foods BV in the Netherlands – from Mitsui & Co Ltd of Japan.   The two businesses import, distribute and market a mixture of exclusive brands and own label foods for retailers and food service companies. The product range comprises a selection of foods but primarily canned fish (tuna, salmon etc) and fruit. The combined business is expected to generate revenues of circa GBP75m in the year to March 2012 with profits in excess of GBP1m.   Manfield was attracted to the

VTB Capital and I2BF Global Ventures have jointly launched a USD100m nanotechnology venture fund with cornerstone backing from the Russian state nanotechnology fund RusNano and Kazyna Capital Management, the sovereign wealth fund of the Republic of Kazakhstan. These entities have committed USD25m each to the new fund, with VTB Capital and I2BF expecting to raise a further USD50m from external investors. The agreement was signed on 21 December 2011 in Almaty at a ceremony attended by Aset Isekeshev, Vice-Premier of Kazakhstan and Minister of Industry and New Technologies, and will soon be followed by the opening of offices in Moscow

The Riverside Company and Tensator  have completed the acquisition of Portuguese customer journey management specialist Newvision. Newvision offers a range of products including dispersed queue management systems, self-service and multimedia information kiosks, and digital displays. Newvision develops integrated products through five product lines that provide virtual queue management, people counting, self-service, multimedia kiosks and corporate television. Since 2008, Newvision has achieved 20% growth per annum in revenues and has more than 3,000 installed solutions serving  more than 400 customers, mainly in Europe, but also in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. Customer sectors include postal, retail and public administration,

An affiliate of Sun European Partners is to acquire American Golf, Europe’s largest golfing retailer from LDC. The value of the transaction has not been disclosed. American Golf has 88 stores in the UK and Republic of Ireland, the company has two online sites and around 760 employees. The business commenced trading in the late 1970s and has since grown into the largest and leading specialist golf retailer in the UK and Europe. It operates the UK‘s premier nationwide retail chain of specialist golf equipment stores, selling a comprehensive range of clubs, bags, balls, clothing and accessories supplied by major