Allocations
Fresh Direct Produce, a portfolio company of middle-market private equity firm HKW, has acquired Mike and Mike’s Inc. Financial terms of the transaction have not been disclosed. Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Woodbridge, Ontario, Canada, Mike and Mike’s is a non-grower distributor of fresh certified organic fruits and vegetables sourced from the United States and internationally as well as British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec. In addition to fruits and vegetables, the Company also sells grocery and snack products.
“We are excited to partner with Mike and Mike’s Organics as part of our expansion into Ontario,” says Davis Yung, President, CEO,
CDC Group, the UK’s development finance institution and a leading impact investor, has committed USD100 million to Helios Investors IV, the fourth private equity fund raised by Africa-focused private equity firm Helios Investment Partners.The pan-African generalist fund will invest in and build market-leading companies across the continent. With a well-established local presence in Lagos and Nairobi, offices in Europe and strong networks across the continent, Helios has grown significantly since its establishment in 2004 and has invested in businesses that operate in over 30 African countries.
Helios has one of the strongest track records in African private equity across
O’Melveny has advised Platinum Equity on its acquisition of L&R Distributors, a wholesale distributor of consumer products servicing more than 17,000 retail locations throughout the United States.The transaction closed on 30 June, 2020.
L&R operates three distribution centres in Arkansas, California, and New Jersey and specialises in large SKU-count categories such as cosmetics, hair care products, stationery, office supplies, and toys.
Platinum Equity is a global investment firm with approximately USD23 billion of assets under management and a portfolio of approximately 40 operating companies that serve customers around the world.
The O’Melveny team advising Platinum Equity was led by corporate
Income streaming provider, Wagestream, which enables employees to access their earned wages in real time, today announced it has completed a GBP20 million Series B funding round.This latest investment — which takes the total raised to GBP65 million — will be used to consolidate the company’s dominant market share in the UK and to fund its international expansion.
Early-stage venture capital specialist Northzone is leading the funding round with participation from QED Investors, Latitude Ventures and Balderton Capital.
Since 1996, Northzone has raised more than GBP1.4 billion and made over 150 investments in companies including Spotify, Zopa and Trustpilot. QED
ADM Capital Europe, a London-based private equity firm, through its Cibus Enterprise Fund (Cibus) has invested in a predictive analytics and livestock monitoring software company, Connecterra, located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Partners in the round include Kersia and impact fund, Pymwymic.
The Cibus Fund team believes that, in Connecterra, they have found a value additive technology that can improve animal welfare and increase returns to farmers by providing some much-needed technological advances and insight into an otherwise archaic farming system.
Connecterra has developed a solution that it has named IDA (Intelligent Dairy Assistant), which can provide farmers with the early detection of
European software investor Hg is to acquire a stake in F24, a pan-European sector leader for emergency notification, crisis & incident management and critical communications, headquartered in Munich, Germany. Hg will invest in a holding currently owned by Armira and co-founder Ralf Meister, and will become the majority shareholder in the business. The Executive Board, Dr Jörg Rahmer (spokesperson), Christian Götz (co-founder and Executive Board member) and Jochen Schütte (Executive Board member) will remain significantly invested in the business, alongside Hg.
F24 partnered with Armira in 2017 and has since then more than doubled its sales by executing a successful growth
ESG investing continues to gain momentum and prominence among global institutional investors as they increasingly look to benchmark not only the performance of funds in their portfolios but the impact they have on the world.
Mutual funds and ETFs with a focus on sustainability attracted USD20.6 billion in net inflows in 2019, four times higher than the USD5.5 billion raised in 2018, according to Morningstar. Within private markets, however, there is still a way to go with only an estimated one third of private equity firms signed up to the UN’s Principles of Responsible Investment.
A recent survey conducted by
Intriva Capital (Intriva), an independent alternative investment manager focused on special situations, has acquired Lending Works, a UK consumer credit and peer-to-peer lending business.Intriva has further committed to providing significant additional funding and capital to support the growth of the business following completion.
Headquartered in London, Lending Works is the UK’s leading disrupter in providing consumer credit through partnerships. Launched in 2014, Lending Works has grown to become one of the largest alternative lenders in the UK having lent almost GBP250 million to loan customers.
Nicholas Harding, founder and chief executive officer of Lending Works, will continue to
RBS International has supported private equity group EQT by participating in its latest flagship buyout fund’s subscription credit facility. As well as being another example of the bank’s considerable support of EQT’s funds over the years, and of the Private Equity industry more broadly, this represents the first ESG-linked fund-level facility of this size in the global fund financing market.
Funded by a syndicate of lenders, the facility includes an ESG pricing mechanism and is designed to incentivise the performance of the fund’s portfolio companies in improving their ESG (environmental, social and governance) performance.
RBS International has a long history of
Nanotechnology business, MIP Diagnostics, has completed a GBP5.1 million funding round to accelerate its global expansion. The co-investment has come from Mercia Asset Management, a founding investor and the largest shareholder in the company, and was led by Downing Ventures (GBP1.4m), BGF (GBP2m) and Calculus Capital.Bedfordshire-based MIP Diagnostics has developed a proprietary process for the manufacture of synthetic polymer alternatives to antibodies, known as Molecularly Imprinted Polymers (MIPs) and nanoMIPs. The company develops and manufactures synthetic affinity reagents – small molecules that are designed to bind to specific target molecules for detection, purification or extraction purposes.
The robust nature
Events
12 November, 2026 – 8:00 am
12 November, 2026 – 5:00 pm
