Private equity giant Blackstone is to make a $500 million strategic investment in Resolution Life as part of a wider plan that will see the global life and annuity insurance consolidation business raise $3 billion in new equity capital commitments. The additional funding, which will bring the company’s overall equity capital base to more than $8 billion, will be raised through a newly established perpetual capital vehicle with Blackstone serving as the General Partner and the majority of Resolution Life’s existing investors expected to roll their investments into this vehicle. Nippon Life, the largest existing investor in Resolution Life, supports

Clearlake Capital Group and Clearlake operating advisor Sam Soni have acquired Ticket Evolution Inc (Ticket Evolution), an end-to-end software provider for the event ticketing industry.  The acquisition was completed through Victory Live, an event management and ticketing technology platform backed by Clearlake and Soni, who is a specialist in the multi-billion-dollar premium ticket and sports hospitality event industry.  Financial terms of the transaction have not been disclosed.   Ticket Evolution manages thousands of sports and events tickets on behalf of both professional ticket resellers and rightsholders through an established B2B marketplace with distribution capabilities. The Company’s offerings include both a

An affiliate of Turnspire Capital Partners (Turnspire) has sold Turnspire portfolio company UPG Company (UPG) to The Partner Companies (TPC). Terms of the transaction have not been disclosed. UPG is a designer, manufacturer and assembler of highly engineered components for data centre, healthcare, energy and diversified industrial end-markets. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, UPG also operates manufacturing facilities in Wales, United Kingdom and Suzhou, China, enabling it to serve customer needs on both a local and global basis.  Since carving out UPG from MedPlast, Inc in 2016, Turnspire and management have transformed the business from a non-core subsidiary into an independent,

Independent power producer Sunly has raised around €200 million to build and expand its renewable energy portfolio in the Baltics and Poland. The capital raise includes investments from Sunly’s existing shareholders and new investor Mirova, a French asset manager dedicated to sustainable investing, and an affiliate of Natixis Asset Management. Mirova, which has been active in the energy transition infrastructure sector for 20 years and has financed more than 330 projects for a total of over 6.5 GW of potential generation capacity across Europe and Asia, is now Sunly’s  largest investor. Mirova recently closed its fifth energy transition infrastructure fund

Vista Equity Partners (Vista) is to acquire KnowBe4, the provider of the world’s largest security awareness training and simulated phishing platforms, in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $4.6 billion on an equity value basis. Under the terms of the merger agreement, KnowBe4 stockholders will receive $24.90 per share in cash upon completion of the proposed transaction. The per share purchase price represents a 44 per cent premium to the Company’s unaffected closing price on September 16, 2022, the last full trading day before Vista publicly disclosed its initial non-binding acquisition proposal on its Schedule 13-D.  As disclosed by KnowBe4

Software buyout firm Thoma Bravo has agreed a $2.3 billion all-cash deal to take ForgeRock private just over a year after the digital identity management company went public, according to a report by Reuters. ForgeRock shareholders will receive $23.25 for each share held, which represents a premium of about 53.4% to the stock’s last closing price. The company’s stock has been trading well below its $25 per share IPO price having fallen over 43% so far in 2022. Prior to its public listing in 2021, ForgeRock had raised over $230 million in growth capital from investors, including Accel, KKR &

A group of private equity investors led by Evergreen Coast Capital Corp, an affiliate of Elliott Investment Management, and Brookfield Business Partners has completed the acquisition of US-based information, data and market measurement firm Nielsen Holdings in a $16 billion all-cash deal. Nielsen shareholders will receive $28 per Nielsen share in cash in accordance with the terms of the transaction. With the completion of the transaction, Nielsen’s shares will no longer trade on the New York Stock Exchange beginning 12 Oct, 2022. Elliott has owned a stake in Nielsen since 2018 and was critical about its financial performance in 2020. Pressure from Elliott

One Equity Partners (OEP), a middle market private equity firm, is to acquire UK‐headquartered engineering consultancy and infrastructure services provider Amey plc from Ferrovial, SA. Founded in 1921, Amey is a top‐five contractor to the UK’s government and public sector, with a 100‐year history in engineering design, construction, maintenance, and project management of critical national infrastructure assets.  Amey’s core markets are transport infrastructure and government buildings, and its competencies cover engineering and systems design, data science, analytics and digitalisation and a broad range of technical and more basic contracting services. The Company has approximately 11,000 employees across 200 locations in

Airwallex, a global fintech platform, has closed its $100 million Series E extension (Series E2) with the same $5.5 billion valuation, securing additional funds from existing investors Square Peg, Salesforce Ventures, Sequoia Capital China, Lone Pine Capital, Hermitage Capital, 1835i Ventures and Tencent.  HostPlus, an Australian industry superannuation fund, as well as a leading North American pension fund also participated in this round. The extension takes Airwallex’s total funding to more than $900 million. Melbourne-founded Airwallex accelerated its international expansion in 2021, successfully extending its reach across Europe, North America and Asia Pacific, serving three of the largest e-commerce markets