Managers
Andreessen Horowitz – the venture capital firm created by Netscape and Opsware founders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz – has led a Series C USD58m round in Europe’s leading financial tech start-up TransferWise.
TransferWise’s existing investors, including Sir Richard Branson, Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures, Index Ventures, IA Ventures, and Seedcamp, also participated in the round.
The start-up will use these funds for global expansion. It opens its US office next month and will be opening offices in Germany and in Australia in the next few months. The company plans to open 300 further currency routes in the next year.
Preqin launched its 2015 Preqin Global Alternatives Reports last week, revealing significant growth in assets held by private equity, hedge fund, private debt, real estate and infrastructure fund managers. Total industry assets now stand at USD6.91tn*, up from USD6.22tn as of this point last year.
Real estate as an asset class has been an important contributor to this growth, as improving valuations of unrealised assets have seen the value of private real estate industry assets rise by USD85bn over the 12 months to June 2014. However, rising prices have also led to tougher competition in the marketplace.
The 2015 Preqin Global Real Estate Report provides a comprehensive review of
Harris Williams & Co has advised TA Associates on its acquisition of a majority interest in Access Technology Group (Access), a business management software company.
Harris Williams & Co is acting as the exclusive financial advisor to TA Associates. The pending transaction, which is expected to close by the end of January 2015, is being led by Thierry Monjauze and Jonathan Organ from Harris Williams & Co’s Technology, Media & Telecom (TMT) Group in London.
“Access is a high quality business which has demonstrated outstanding and consistent organic and acquisitive growth driven by its ability to deliver premium, end-to-end ERP
Preqin has launched its 2015 Preqin Global Alternatives Reports, revealing significant growth in assets held by private equity, hedge fund, private debt, real estate and infrastructure fund managers. Total industry assets now stand at USD6.91tn*, up from USD6.22tn as of this point last year.
From their conversations with investors, Preqin believes the majority remain confident in the ability of alternative assets to help achieve portfolio objectives. Indeed, across all asset classes a much larger proportion of investors plan to increase their exposure rather than cut back their allocations to alternatives.
The 2015 Preqin Private Equity & Venture Capital Report provides
Bloomsbury Publishing has acquired Osprey Publishing Ltd, the Oxford-based military and natural history publisher, from private equity investor Alcuin Capital Partners LLP.
The Osprey group consists of Osprey Military, Heritage and Custom Publishing, and British Wildlife Press. Osprey Military is the world's best known military history brand, publishing titles with international appeal that cover history from ancient times to the modern day.
The Military division is the largest part of Osprey, with a significant subscriber database. Osprey owns the copyright over the majority of its titles and over 50 per cent of its revenue is generated outside the UK –
KKR has acquired Trainline, the UK’s online platform for selling rail tickets to both consumers and businesses.
Trainline is the most downloaded travel app in the UK and its website ranks 5th by gross transaction value in the UK e-commerce sector. The company has 4.7m active customers, 20.8m visits per month and operates platforms for both consumers and businesses. Trainline is licensed to sell rail tickets on behalf of all UK Train Operating Companies, Deutsche Bahn and Trenitalia.
Doug McCallum, Chairman of Trainline, says: “Our vision is to transform Trainline into a leading international ecommerce platform and an indispensable partner
On Deck Capital has launched OnDeck Marketplace, a platform that enables institutional investors to purchase small business loans originated by OnDeck and drive small business success.
The general availability of OnDeck Marketplace comes after a one-year pilot program with a group of inaugural institutional investors, including asset managers, hedge funds and business development companies. To use the platform, each institutional investor opens its own OnDeck Marketplace account, purchases loans on a programmatic basis, and then receives daily principal and interest payments from the loans it owns. OnDeck services the loans institutions purchase, making the process seamless, transparent and efficient.
“Institutional
Former BBC Newsnight anchor, Jeremy Paxman, will be asking the questions about the prospects for the international funds industry when he moderates this year’s Jersey Finance funds conference.
Entitled ‘Winning Moves,’ the annual conference, which will be held i London on 19 March, will provide an analysis of the current global funds marketplace, the changing regulatory landscape and the role of alternative fund domiciles as the global industry meets the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. Jeremy Paxman will be chairing two panel sessions during the course of the conference and will also make the closing remarks.
An award-winning journalist
Chicago-based private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners (MDP) is to acquire a majority interest in Walgreens Infusion Services.
With more than 30 years of experience, Walgreens Infusion Services is one of the nation’s largest providers of home and alternate treatment site infusion services and is considered an industry pioneer. Walgreens Infusion Services’ broad geographic footprint includes 89 infusion pharmacies and 110 alternate treatment sites in 40 states, approximately 4,700 employees and the ability to serve more than 90 percent of the US population. Its clinical personnel, including nurses, pharmacists, technicians and dieticians, treat patients who are managing a broad range
Preqin has been busy preparing its end-of-year investor and fund manager reports across all major alternative asset classes: hedge funds, private equity, private real estate and infrastructure. The following article summarises the key findings from these reports at a broad strokes level.
Hedge Funds
2014 proved a challenging year for hedge funds. Performance-wise it was the worst year since 2011, with the average hedge fund failing to hit 4%. Unsurprisingly, performance (33%) and fees (21%) are cited as the top two challenges for the industry by institutional investors for 2015. According to Preqin, this could work to the advantage of
Events
12 November, 2026 – 8:00 am
12 November, 2026 – 5:00 pm
