Managers
Private equity firm Bregal Investments has launched a EUR40 million Bregal Sustainable Development Fund (SD Fund), as part of its Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) strategy.
The SD Fund will provide attractive financing to existing portfolio companies across the Bregal platform, focusing exclusively on ESG improvement projects. The SD Fund was launched in Q2 of 2018.
Quentin van Doosselaere and Steven Black, Co-CEOs of Bregal Investments, says: “This is an important milestone for our firm, as we’ve just published our first Responsible Investment Report which underscores our commitment to ESG and shows our ESG approach across the Bregal platform.
An affiliate of Harbor Beach Capital, a private equity firm focused on investing in lower middle market companies, has made an investment in AVFX, an event technology services business.
Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, AVFX provides event technology services, including audio, visual and lighting production and staging services for corporate events, trade shows, exhibits and meetings, primarily in North America.
AVFX was founded over 35 years ago by Murray Lapides who, along with AVFX’s management team, successfully grew the company from a predominantly Boston-focused audio-visual staging company into a well-recognized event technology services business supporting corporate and institutional clients throughout
Irish insurance brokerage Arachas Corporate Brokers (Arachas), a portfolio company of private equity firm Sovereign Capital Partners, has acquired Covercentre. This is the third acquisition Arachas has made since Sovereign backed the management buy-out of the business last year.
Covercentre is a wholesale insurance broker that offers specialist property and commercial vehicle insurance to circa 300 sub-brokers in Ireland. Based in Dublin, the business has rapidly developed a strong and growing presence in the Irish broker-to-broker personal lines market since it was established in 2012. The combined group will employ over 230 staff across its offices in Dublin, Cork and
Cleeng, a video eCommerce provider, has completed its growth financing from Walvis Participaties and existing shareholders, which will be used to accelerate the company’s international growth.
This latest funding round will give the investors a minority stake in the company. Drake Star Partners acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Cleeng on this transaction.
Founded in 2011, Cleeng is the leading company for selling premium videos direct-to-consumer. Its fully managed Live PPV and SVOD solutions take care of all the steps from Identity and Access Management, e-commerce, and end-user support to security. The Company’s highly scalable platform has been
Deal flow for sub-USD1 billion private equity (PE) funds accelerated at the start of 2018 and set an all-time record for any first quarter, according to data analysed by top 100 US law firm Akerman.
Despite this year’s decrease experienced by the rest of middle market funds, data found in the second quarterly Akerman PErspectives Report indicates activity surrounding sub-USD1 billion funds continued to show positive divergence from peers of larger size and scope.
Compared to 2017, exit value and volume for these sub-USD1 billion buyout vehicles for the first quarter of 2018 also were up and stable, in
Social and Sustainable Capital (SASC) has increased its financing commitment to HCT Group, a UK-based community transport operator, by investing a further GBP2.05 million to accelerate its growth. It follows a first investment of GBP500,000 made in 2015.
Founded in 1982, HCT Group has grown to become one of the leading social enterprises in the UK, with a turnover of GBP60m. It helps tackle social isolation by providing transport and training services for marginalised people and communities, which is paid for by the revenues of commercial bus contracts.
SASC is one of the largest investors in the junior tranches of
UK private equity house Maven Capital Partners (Maven) has completed a GBP1.6 million investment in BioAscent Discovery Limited (BioAscent), an integrated drug discovery services business.
The funding will enable BioAscent to significantly expand its service offering, adding complementary chemistry and biology services and capitalise on the growing trend towards the outsourcing of drug discovery activities. The funding will support the creation of 10 new jobs, including in highly skilled scientific positions, and fund additional laboratory space.
BioAscent has recently assembled a team of expert biologists and medicinal chemists that have a track record of taking drugs from concept to
Seedrs, the operator of secondary market for private equity investments has reported impressive demand for shares in its portfolio companies since launching 12 months ago. In that time, Seedrs has achieved 2,990 investor exits in what was previously an illiquid asset class.
Until Seedrs launched its secondary market, the long-term nature of early stage private equity meant that shares tend to be illiquid and investors would have to wait for an exit event such as an IPO or a sale of the business before seeing any returns on their investment.
The latest trading cycle in June saw 601 share
Victory Park Specialty Lending Investments plc (VSL), a company that invests in opportunities within the financial services market primarily through balance sheet or marketplace lending models, has reported a record NAV return of 1.03 per cent for May.
The company’s previous best was 0.95 per cent in April.
Gross revenue return was 1.08 per cent and total net revenue return was 0.94 per cent.
VSL, whose investment manager is Victory Park Capital Investment Advisors (VPC), says the positive capital return was largely driven by a significant valuation increase in a minority equity decision, which resulted from a Series
European private equity deal-makers have put the brakes on their frenetic exit pace, with the EUR100 billion-plus generated in each of the last four years from divestments now falling to just EUR39.9 billion for the first six months of 2018, according to provisional H1 data from the CMBOR at Imperial College Business School, sponsored by Equistone Partners Europe and Investec Specialist Bank.
The sum sees the overall value of exits in Europe drop by nearly a third (30 per cent) from EUR56.9 billion in H2 2017, though it was a half of two quarters, with EUR25.8 billion completed in
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