Allocations
Olde Thompson, a California-based provider of private label and branded spices and seasonings, has acquired Gel Spice, a family-owned New Jersey-based importer and manufacturer of spices, seasoning, and bakery ingredients to both the retail and foodservice channels. The transaction further establishes Olde Thompson as a leader in the spice category with a differentiated bi-coastal manufacturing footprint, unlocking additional channels and expanding the company’s product offering into pouches, extracts and single serve seasonings for meal kits and other applications.
Olde Thompson is a portfolio company of Kainos Capital, a private equity firm focused exclusively on the food and consumer industry. The
NatWest Trustee and Depositary Services Limited is providing depositary services both in the UK and in Luxembourg for Ardian’s eighth-generation secondaries platform ASF VIII, which recently closed on USD19 billion as the world’s largest secondaries market vehicle.Headquartered in Paris, Ardian is a world-leading private investment house with assets of USD96 billion managed or advised in Europe, the Americas and Asia. The firm’s Fund of Funds platform, which covers both primary and secondary fund of funds, now has USD53 billion in assets under management (AUM), with an exposure to more than 10,000 portfolio companies through 1,600 underlying funds.
As partners to
KPS Capital Partners (KPS), through a newly formed affiliate, is to acquire AM General from an affiliate of MacAndrews & Forbes Incorporated. Financial terms of the transaction have not been disclosed.
AM General designs, engineers, manufactures, supplies and supports specialised vehicles for military and commercial customers worldwide, including the iconic High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle colloquially known as the HUMVEE®. The Company is a global leader in ground vehicle systems and its military business is widely recognised for excellence in design, engineering, manufacturing and logistics support of tactical vehicles. AM General has built and maintained over one million vehicles in
Aker Systems has secured a significant minority investment from LDC, a mid-market private equity firm, as it targets further expansion to support the digital transformation of organisations across the UK. Financial details of the investment have not been disclosed.Aker Systems was founded in 2016 by a team of experienced technology professionals who recognised an opportunity to provide highly secure enterprise data platforms to large organisations. The business designs, builds and operates ultra-secure public cloud data environments for large private and public sector clients. Its proprietary technology solutions drive performance and reduce costs while helping its clients to improve the management
Sestante Capital (Sestante) has launched a new private equity fund, SC Food Innovation Fund.“We’re excited to bring a unique product to the market and to give investors exposure to a transformative category. This category is fueled by consumers that have a continuing and increasing focus on sustainability, health and freshness,” says Giovanni Pennetta, Managing Partner of Sestante. “During the recent global pandemic, with a large number of contagion hotspots identified in food processing centers, we’ve seen a tremendous increase in consumer adoption of alternative proteins, and we believe this is just the beginning as consumer rapidly recognized the benefits being
Evolution Equity Partners has led a Series C round in Quantexa, a decision intelligence software company that enables organisations to make better decisions, raising a further USD64.7 million in funding.
London-based growth investor SFC Capital has led a GBP 500,000 seed round for biotechnology startup Novai, a product of University College London.
Founded by Professor Francesca Cordeiro from UCL and Imperial College London and headquartered in London, Novai was created through Wellcome Trust funding.
The fresh capital will be used to develop Novai’s AI technology that helps standard medical imaging equipment identify eye disease at a cellular level up to 18 months earlier than current gold-standard processes.
Novai appointed Gordon Bethwaite as acting CEO and added three new senior board members in connection with the investment. Bethwaite has worked in
Central Europe’s private equity markets are feeling the impact of Covid-19 – but there is more optimism than during the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, suggesting the experience the region’s deal-doers have accumulated may buoy investments and create a basis for new deals, according to the latest Deloitte Central Europe Private Equity Confidence Survey.
UK private equity house Maven Capital Partners (Maven) has led an investment through its managed VCTs, alongside the Scottish Investment Bank, in Quorum Cyber Security Limited (Quorum), a cyber security firm, providing professional and managed security services to companies across the UK, Europe and the Middle East. The funding will be used to further scale the business, investing in sales and marketing resource, as well as product innovation, to ensure Quorum’s clients can confidently operate within an increasingly hostile cybersecurity environment.
Headquartered in Edinburgh, Quorum provides Professional and Managed Security Services including a fully managed detect and response capability via
Strategic Partners, Blackstone’s secondary and fund solutions business, has held the final close on USD3.75 billion for Strategic Partners Infrastructure III and its related committed program vehicles (SP Infrastructure III). Blackstone says SP Infrastructure III is the world’s largest pool of capital dedicated to infrastructure secondaries.
Verdun Perry, Senior Managing Director and Global Head of Strategic Partners, says: “We are deeply thankful for our investors’ continued support as they entrust us to provide attractive risk-adjusted returns for the millions of beneficiaries they represent. Over the past twenty years we have built one of the world’s largest private market secondary platforms, which
Events
12 November, 2026 – 8:00 am
12 November, 2026 – 5:00 pm
