Managers
ICV Partners (ICV), an investment firm focused on lower middle market companies, has successfully completed the final closing for ICV Partners IV (Fund IV) with USD585 million of committed capital.
ICV currently manages usd1.3 billion of AUM.
ICV’s Fund IV meaningfully exceeded the firm’s target and represents an approximately 50 per cent increase in capital commitments compared to Fund III. Investors include a diverse group of leading endowments, foundations, state pension plans, family offices, gatekeepers, insurance companies and fund of funds.
Willie Woods, President of ICV Partners, says: “We are grateful for the immense support we’ve had from
KPS Capital Partners (KPS), through an affiliate, is to sell Expera Specialty Solutions (Expera) to Ahlstrom-Munksjö Oyj (Ahlstrom-Munksjö), of Finland, a specialist in fibre-based materials, for USD615 million.
Expera is a leading North American manufacturer of specialty paper products for the industrial & technical, food and pressure-sensitive release liner segments. Headquartered in Wisconsin, Expera employs approximately 1,800 people. KPS created Expera in June 2013 by completing two discrete and highly synergistic acquisitions: the technical and specialty paper businesses of Wausau Paper Corp. and Packaging Dynamics Corporation, respectively.
Raquel Palmer, a Partner of KPS, says: “The success of our investment
UK private equity investor Graphite Capital, has completed the fundraising for its ninth fund, Graphite Capital Partners IX, securing capital commitments of over GBP470 million, slightly more than the GBP450m raised for its previous fund.
Graphite was able to reach its target quickly, with existing investors providing 75 per cent of the capital raised. In total, 25 investors have committed to the fund of which nine are new, attracted by Graphite’s strong performance over the past decade, its long-term track record and the stability of its team. The fund has a broad geographical spread, with 44 per cent of commitments
Arkessa, an Internet-of-Things (IoT) managed services provider, has completed a management buyout backed by ECI Partners. Arkessa enables Enterprises to develop and optimise their businesses by helping them adopt, integrate and scale IoT enabled services.
Founded in Cambridge in 2009, Arkessa’s goal is to ‘future proof’ customers’ connections to the IoT. Since pioneering the aggregation of multiple mobile networks and technologies into a single managed service, Arkessa now sells software and services to IoT solution providers around the world.
Led by Andrew Orrock, CEO, John Freeman, CTO, and Phil McDermott, CCO, Arkessa operates in a large and rapidly growing
Balance Point Capital (Balance Point), in conjunction with its affiliated funds, Balance Point Capital Partners II, and Balance Point Capital Partners III, has invested in Two-Twenty Records Management (Two-Twenty), a portfolio company of private equity firm Topspin Partners (Topspin).
Continuing with its theme of providing long-term, partnership-oriented capital, Balance Point arranged and led a USD124 million debt financing to fund acquisitions by Two-Twenty and Topspin. The financing was also used to retire existing debt and provides significant available capital for future growth investments. Balance Point’s creativity and leadership enabled a structure that promotes the Company’s strategic initiatives while optimising its
Wren House Infrastructure Management (Wren House), a London-based global infrastructure investor, is to acquire North Sea Midstream Partners (NSMP) from private equity firm and affiliate ArcLight Capital Partners (ArcLight).
Wren House has agreed to acquire ArcLight’s entire stake in the company.
NSMP has interests in and operates four large scale natural gas transportation and processing assets in and around the North Sea. The assets, which form a key part of the UK’s gas infrastructure, include a 67 per cent operated interest in the Shetland Island Regional Gas Export System pipeline (SIRGE), which transports natural gas from the prolific West
Ogier has acted as Jersey legal adviser for Index Ventures on the establishment of Index Ventures Growth IV, which has raised USD1 billion to invest in later-stage, growth rounds, and Index Ventures IX, which recently closed at EUR650 million to put into earlier rounds for smaller start-up companies.
This latest USD1.65 billion from Index is a significant increase in fund size on its previous growth and venture fund close (in 2016 it raised USD550 million for venture and EUR650 million for growth), which will enable Index Ventures to take advantage of increasingly sophisticated and international start-ups. The funds are expected
International law firm Taylor Wessing has advised European commercial printing group Walstead on its acquisition of LSC Communications’ European printing business based in Poland.
Following completion, Walstead will be a leading producer of advertising flyers and magazines in Europe with pro-forma annual revenues exceeding EUR730 million. The enlarged group will employ over 4,400 staff operating 70 web offset and four gravure printing presses which process 905,000 tonnes of paper annually. The group will serve 4,800 customers in 38 countries from 19 production facilities in the UK, Spain, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovenia and Poland.
The deal is subject to customary
Brightpearl, a provider of a purpose-built retail ERP platform, has secured a USD15 million in growth investment round and appointed a new Chairman to help drive further expansion.
More than 1,000 brands rely on Brightpearl to transact more than USD1.8 billion of trade across 26 countries. The company has seen a 77 per cent increase in year-on-year new business growth and delivered 34 per cent revenue growth in the last 12 months alone. Brightpearl was recently voted the top SaaS company to work for in Britain, beating companies such as Microsoft, Adobe and LinkedIn.
The latest growth round for
Graycliff Partners, an independent investment firm focused on lower middle market private equity and mezzanine investments in the United States, has completed the sale of Skandia, an interior products and services provider to the aviation industry, to TransDigm Group Incorporated for a total purchase price of USD84 million.
TransDigm, through its wholly owned subsidiaries, is a leading global designer, producer and supplier of highly engineered aircraft components for use on nearly all commercial and military aircraft in service today.
Headquartered in Davis Junction, Illinois, Skandia is a leading provider of highly engineered seating foam, foam fabrication, flammability testing and
Events
12 November, 2026 – 8:00 am
12 November, 2026 – 5:00 pm
