FORWARD FEATURES CALENDAR

Allocations

Specialist asset manager, Mercia Asset Management, has sold its stake in The Native Antigen Company, a leading producer of infectious disease reagents, to global life sciences tools company LGC for a total cash consideration of up to GBP18.0 million.Mercia has supported The Native Antigen Company since it commenced trading, investing from both its own balance sheet and its third-party funds under management, and held a 49.4% stake. The sale is anticipated to generate an 8.4x return on Mercia’s balance sheet investment and a 12.1x return on its managed funds.   Mercia’s Chief Operations Officer Peter Dines sat on the company’s board
Strategy consulting groups Altman Vilandrie & Company and Solon Management Consulting have merged to form Altman Solon, which will focus exclusively on the Telecommunications, Media and Technology (TMT) sectors. The news solidifies a decade-long partnership between the two firms to increase their global footprint and apply their experience and skills to TMT market leaders, challenger brands and investors around the world.   Altman Solon’s team of sector specialists brings together deep market expertise with a shared passion and intellectual curiosity to solve challenging strategy problems and create real-world solutions for TMT players. Altman Solon helps clients identify, develop and implement company
Global asset manager DWS and Northwestern Mutual’s private markets division, Northwestern Mutual Capital (NMC), have formed a strategic partnership to identify and develop private market opportunities.NMC has been investing in private markets for more than 40 years, and the partnership represents a strong addition to DWS’s private asset offering to institutional investors. Through the partnership, NMC will grow third-party assets and further diversify in collaboration with DWS’s global private equity team. For DWS, this partnership accelerates a strong growth area for its business as investors continue to increase their commitments to private market strategies. “The close relationship between NMC and
Deal-making
Pictet Alternative Advisors (PAA) has held the final close of Monte Rosa V, the fifth fund in a series of diversified, multi-manager private equity funds, at at USD 1.164 billion. Maurizio Arrigo, head of Private Equity at PAA, said that the capital raise positions Pictet as a “leader in the global private equity sector, capable of attracting both high net worth individuals and traditional institutional investors.” Monte Rosa V will invest mainly in North American and European buyout funds, as well as in other geographies (for example China, Australia, emerging markets, but to a lesser extent). It will also invest in
EQT portfolio company SUSE, an open source infrastructure software provider, has acquired Silicon Valley-based Rancher Labs, a Kubernetes container management platform. Together, the companies will be ideally positioned to support global enterprises in accelerating their transition from traditional on-prem IT infrastructures to hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Headquartered in Nuremberg, Germany, SUSE is a pioneer and recognised leader for enterprise grade open source software with more than 25 years of engineering excellence. Today, more than 13,000 blue-chip enterprise customers around the world use SUSE’s software to run mission critical applications anywhere – on premise, hybrid and multi-cloud across all industry verticals. The
Machine Labs has raised a Seed Extension round of GBP1 million (USD1.25 million) lead by Techstart Ventures alongside the founders, the angel investors Bill Dobbie and Richard Freedman, and the British Business Bank. 
Mercia Asset Management has announced the sale of The Native Antigen Company Limited (NAC) to LGC, a specialist in the life sciences tools sector, for a total cash consideration of up to GBP18.0million.Mercia held a 29.4 per cent fully diluted direct holding in NAC at the date of sale and will receive initial cash proceeds of GBP4.8million, with up to a further GBP0.4million receivable upon finalisation of customary closing working capital calculations.   Based upon the total anticipated amount receivable of GBP5.2million, the total realised return above the GBP2.7million holding value as at 30 September 2019, will be a further
YourMedPack Ltd, a provider of smart medication packs to support patients at home and in care, has secured GBP600,000 in funding from the Greater Manchester & Cheshire Life Sciences Fund, managed by Catapult Ventures, and existing investors.YourMedPack has developed a smart medication pack to support patients at home or in care to take their medications, improve medication management and aid adherence. The company’s smart medication packs are based on widely used blister packs already familiar to patients and their families, as well as carers and pharmacies. Despite being a novel solution, the technology is cost effective and does not require
Mobilux, the holding company of BUT, a Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (CD&R) portfolio company, is to acquire Conforama France, a subsidiary of Steinhoff International, to create the largest omnichannel furniture retail group in France. After the transaction close, BUT and Conforama France will continue to operate as independent entities under common ownership. Conforama France is a leading home equipment retailer of furniture, decoration, and a range of homeware appliances and electronic goods. The combination with BUT will be No1 by revenue in the French home furnishings market, underpinned by strong brands, a broad network, competitive product positioning and a compelling customer
Permutive – a publisher-focussed data management platform – has raised USD18.5 million in Series B funding, led by Octopus Ventures with participation from EQT Ventures and earlier investors. The company, which works with global publishers, tripled revenue growth last year. The funding announcement comes at an unprecedented time for publishers, as web traffic continues to spike due to coronavirus yet struggles to monetise this readership persist. The new capital will be used for international expansion, as the company continues to grow market share in North America. Permutive is also making significant hires to further enhance the experience and expertise in its senior team, including

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