Managers
The fourth Albion Growth Report, based on interviews with 1,000 SMEs, finds that less than half (45 per cent) of microbusiness owners with fewer than five employees expect their company to grow over the next two years compared to almost three-quarters (73 per cent) of larger scale SMEs.
The report sheds light on the factors that create and impede growth and reveals a significant divide in confidence between small and larger scale SMEs across a range of key indicators.
The majority (57 per cent) of SMEs expect to register an increase in productivity in the next 24 months compared to
Ramsdens Holdings, a diversified financial services provider and retailer backed by NorthEdge Capital, is to seek admission of its shares to trading on the AIM Market of the London Stock Exchange following a successful institutional placing.
Admission is expected to occur on 15 February 2017.
Ramsdens operates in the four core business segments of foreign currency exchange, pawnbroking loans, the buying and selling of precious metals and the retailing of second hand and new jewellery.
Headquartered in Middlesbrough, the company operates from 127 stores within the UK and has a growing online presence, serving over 700,000 customers across
TPG Capital, the global private equity platform of alternative asset firm TPG, has closed its acquisitions of RCN Telecom Services and Grande Communications Networks, two US regional broadband service providers.
The transaction combines the two companies into the seventh largest US cable company and a market-leading provider of next-generation, high-speed data services for residential and business customers in six states.
Jim Holanda and Steve Simmons of Patriot Media, who have run RCN since 2010 and Grande since 2013, will continue to lead the combined company.
On 15 August, 2016, TPG Capital announced that it had entered into two
European private equity firm Silverfleet Capital’s Fund II portfolio company Coventya has made two add-on acquisitions, both in Turkey.
Coventya, headquartered in Villeneuve-la-Garenne near Paris, is a chemicals group focused on surface treatment to the automotive, construction, luxury and consumer goods, data storage, and oil & gas industries.
In the larger of the two deals Coventya has acquired an 80.6 per cent interest in Borsa Istanbul-listed Politeknik Metal Sanayi ve Ticaret AŞ (Politeknik), a manufacturer of aluminium surface treatment (AST) chemicals and engineering services for the corresponding application equipment with revenues of over EUR9 million. Coventya will also launch
The Semcon Group is selling its engineering operations in Germany – Business Area Engineering Services Germany – to Valmet Automotive in a EUR14.1 million deal.
The business provides services to customers primarily in the German automotive industry and has around 800 employees with annual sales in 2015 amounting to SEK901 million and an operating loss of SEK49 million.
During the January-September period 2016, sales amounted to SEK667 million and operating profit to SEK13 million.
Semcon’s operations in product information in Germany are not affected by the sale.
“Business Area Engineering Services Germany largely consists of services related
Funds managed by FL Partners, a Dublin-based investment boutique, have acquired Potensis Recruitment, one of the largest recruiters to the UK housebuilding and construction industries, together with SEAL Resource Management, a related business.
Potensis, founded in 2000, provides temporary and permanent recruitment services to the residential housebuilding, social housing and commercial construction sectors. It recruits across all job levels and its clients include many of the UK’s leading publicly-listed housebuilders and social housing groups. Most of its clients have worked with Potensis for at least a decade.
Jared Sullivan, founder and managing director, has invested alongside FL. Steven Kirkpatrick has
Céréa Capital II has completed its fourth investment, participating in the reorganisation of the capital and financial structure of GPS Group, in partnership with Bpifrance and the company's management.
Based in Bordeaux, GPS Group is specialised in industrial packaging logistics, used for the transport of viscous or liquid materials such as natural and synthetic rubber as well as food products. It provides a complete and outsourced lease concept for reusable metal crates, including delivery, maintenance and logistics at producer's plants.
Created in 1950, the family business, presided by Benoit Arnaud, first began as a wooden pallet and crate manufacturer,
EOS Investment Management has acquired, through its energy fund Efesto Energy, a portfolio of approximately 40 MW owned by Telmo Group from Bergamo, Italy.
This EUR140 million transaction places EOS IM’s latest acquisition among the biggest transactions in the last 12 months in Italy in the renewable energy sector. The fund has reached circa EUR240 million of assets under management.
The portfolio consists of 35 plants located in Puglia, Piedmont and Sardinia, 19 wind farms and 16 solar plants. They have been operating for over three years with high level of production performance, generating an average of 78 GWh
MARU Group, a market and customer insights company backed by Primary Capital Partners, has acquired research technology platform Usurv for an undisclosed sum.
Usurv will subsequently be rebranded to Maru/Usurv and founders Martin Bysh and Guy Potter will remain with the company to oversee its growth trajectory and development.
Founded in 2011, Usurv is a survey platform which provides immediate access to respondents from a network of third party partner websites and sample providers, via online or mobile recruitment. The platform automatically fields short form surveys to those respondents, collecting, analysing and reporting the responses in a matter of
Huron Capital Partners has closed the Huron Fund V with USD550 million of total limited partner capital commitments.
The fund, which is Huron Capital Partners’ sixth investment vehicle, closed at its hard cap and in excess of its USD500 million target.
Receiving commitments from a number of top-tier investors, including endowments, foundations, multi-manager funds, public pensions, corporate pensions and family offices, the fund closed after three months of marketing and was oversubscribed with over USD1 billion of demand.
Like its predecessor, Huron Fund IV, which also closed above its target at USD500 million of capital commitments in 2013,
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