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21 Investimenti, an investment firm founded and led by Alessandro Benetton, is to sell a majority stake in Farnese Vini to NB Renaissance Partners, the private equity fund formed in 2015 by Neuberger Berman and Intesa SanPaolo. Farnese Vini is a group active in the production, bottling and sale of Central/Southern Italian wine.   During 21 Investimenti’s three-and-a-half-year investment, the company has launched production of wine from Puglia, invested more than EUR10 million in production capacity in two modern plants in Abruzzo and Basilicata, doubled the number of employees and increased turnover from EUR32 million in 2012 to EUR56 million expected
Sun Capital Partners’ affiliated portfolio company Aclara Technologies has acquired the smart grid business of Tollgrade Communications. The transaction includes the LightHouse distribution monitoring platform comprising Sensors and Sensor Management System (SMS) software with Predictive Grid Analytics, as well as a broad intellectual property portfolio. Financial terms have not been disclosed.   The addition of the LightHouse platform expands Aclara’s capabilities in distribution grid monitoring. Deployed at some of the world’s leading utilities, the Smart Grid LightHouse platform provides fault detection and location, power quality monitoring and classification of grid events to monitor the health of the distribution grid, make
GigPeak, a specialist in semiconductor ICs and software solutions for high-speed connectivity and high-quality video compression over the Network and the Cloud, has closed its acquisition of Exccess Venture Fund holding Magnum Semiconductor. Magnum Semiconductor is a provider of silicon ICs, SoCs, software, and IP for the professional video broadcast and IoT camera markets.   This marks the third consecutive exit for Exccess Venture Fund. Exccess Venture Fund, located in St. Charles, Illinois historically looks for companies that have rapidly growing multibillion-dollar addressable markets, game-changing technology, ability to achieve market dominance and a management team that has demonstrated the ability
Avedon Capital Partners and management have sold Tesch Inkasso Group, a German debt collection company, to Lowell GFKL Group, a credit receivables management backed by the Permira Funds and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP). Tesch Inkasso is headquartered in Wiehl, Germany. Its core business is to recover debt claims, mostly from private debtors in the name of its clients.   Tesch has around 10,000 unique clients and a volume of receivables serviced of approximately EUR2 billion with leading positions in the utilities and eCommerce sectors. Tesch currently employs around 430 trained professional staff in its three locations in Gummersbach, Krefeld
The half-year 2016 edition of Mergermarket's Deal Drivers EMEA reveals a more cautious dealmaking environment, with European investors eyeing political and economic changes in key markets, notably the UK's decision to ultimately leave the EU. As a result, European deal value dropped 18 per cent to EUR314.7 billion compared to the first six months of 2015.   Deal volume remained relatively stable with 3,222 deals, 2 per cent less than the same period last year, underpinned by deals in the mid-market range.      Paul Francis-Grey, deputy editor EMEA at Mergermarket says: "Global M&A fever has cooled after two frenzied years
Inflexion portfolio company Global Reach Partners (GRP), a UK foreign exchange specialist, has completed the acquisition of international money transfer and payment solutions provider FC Exchange. GRP, which provides payments and hedging services to businesses and private individuals, transacts annually over GBP3.5 billion of foreign currency, through its team of over 100 traders and support staff based in London.   The acquisition will increase these transactions annually to over GBP5.5 billion and the combined team to 170 employees.   The acquisition of FCE allows GRP to build scale and add capabilities.   Mark Smith-Halvorsen, co-founder and chief executive officer of
BPS Technology has completed its underwritten AUD27.5 million institutional placement and will use net proceeds of the capital raising to fund the acquisition of Entertainment Publications Australia and New Zealand. Entertainment Publications is a business-to-consumer deals platform with 12,000 SMEs, 18,000 not-for-profits and 550,000 members.   The consideration for the Entertainment Publications acquisition is AUD22.5 million in cash and 2,659,574 in BPS shares.   The vendor of Entertainment Publications, Ben Johnson, who will remain as chairman of Entertainment after completion, says: “Entertainment Publications and BPS share the same culture and values, making this a natural win for both companies. They
Marriner Erik Gunnerson
Alternative asset manager Mariner Investment Group has closed a USD503 million collateralised loan obligation (CLO), the third such transaction by Mariner's leveraged credit team. Mariner has now closed approximately USD1.5 billion in CLOs in the past two years.     "We are pleased at the continued success our team has achieved with its first three CLO's, and with our ability to capitalise on the current market environment," says David Martin, co-head of Mariner's leveraged credit team. "Our success reflects the strength and talent of our growing team, as well as ORIX's continued support of the Mariner platform."   Mariner's leveraged
Private equity investment firm KKR has launched the Eco-Innovation Award for its portfolio companies as part of the firm’s Green Solutions Platform (GSP). The platformh aims to identify, support and highlight environmental initiatives across three areas: eco-efficiency, eco-innovation, and/or eco-solutions.   The Eco-Innovation Award is intended to reward current projects or initiatives within KKR portfolio companies that are innovative, environmentally beneficial solutions that create business value.   “Our goal with the Green Solutions Platform and now the Eco-Innovation Award is to encourage and support our companies’ eco-innovation work as we do their eco-efficiency projects,” says Elizabeth Seeger, director at KKR
Private equity returns remained relatively flat in the first three months of the year, according to State Street’s GX Private Equity Index, which saw an overall return of 0.65 per cent for the period. The index, which includes a dataset dating back to 1980, is based on directly sourced limited partnership data and represents more than USD2 trillion in private equity investments, with more than 2,500 unique private equity partnerships, as of 31 March 2016.   State Street says the return of US-focused funds remained unchanged from the previous quarter. Among all three main strategies, venture capital posted a loss of

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