Managers
Drooms, Europe’s specialist provider of digital data rooms, enjoyed a successful year in 2020, with the number of users of asset management platform Drooms PORTFOLIO, rising 87 per cent versus the previous year.
As a result, the number of assets managed and transacted on Drooms surpassed 10,000 for the first time. Drooms also proved its resilience to crises during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
Alexandre Grellier, Co-founder and CEO of Drooms, explains: “Our response from customers remains huge. This is down to the fact that in 2019 we invested in our services and increased staff levels in our
England’s North West is a prime destination for private equity and venture capital investment, and therefore a ‘key player’ in the UK’s growth-led recovery, a new report has found.
The report, produced by the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (BVCA), takes a closer look at investment in the North West of England and is the first in a series of publications that look at the benefits of private equity and venture capital backing on a region-by-region basis.
The benefits, both social and economic, are illustrated by the latest industry data – including how many businesses and sectors
Addleshaw Goddard has advised Terra Firma on the GBP110 million acquisition of Kier Living from leading UK construction and infrastructure company Kier Group.
The AG team was led by Corporate Partner Graham Cross alongside Real Estate Partners William Boss and Cathy Fearnhead.
The sale, due to be finalised over the coming weeks (subject to shareholder approval), will create a standalone UK house building business, to be re-branded Tilia Homes.
Kier Group announced its intention to sell its Living division, which employs around 450 people, in a strategic review in 2019. The business will continue to be run by
Pan-European asset manager AURELIUS has closed the AURELIUS European Opportunities IV. The Fund has secured EUR350 million of total commitments from a diverse group of top-tier institutional investors, including US and European university endowments, pension funds, insurance companies and family offices.
AURELIUS’ listed vehicle, AURELIUS Equity Opportunities SE & Co. KGaA (ISIN: DE000A0JK2A8), will – in addition to its established lower mid-market investment program – co-invest up to EUR150 million alongside the Fund creating a total deal-making firepower of EUR 500 million for investments in the European mid-market.
Despite the Fund being significantly oversubscribed, AURELIUS effectively capped the Fund at
Muzinich & Co has held the third close of the Muzinich Pan-European II Private Debt Fund (the Fund), at EUR342 million.
The Fund focuses on providing growth capital to lower middle-market companies to fund acquisitions, expansions and transitions in family and founder-owned businesses. Muzinich & Co.’s locally-based teams work across Europe to deliver on-the-ground deal sourcing and origination. The Fund follows on from the successful EUR706.5 million closing of the firm’s first Pan-European Private Debt Fund in 2018.
Kirsten Bode, Co-Head of Private Debt, Pan-Europe, says: “Investors’ interest in private debt continues to grow as one of the asset classes
RGE Services, a fire and electrical compliance services provider primarily working with the public sector, has funded its primary buyout by securing an equity investment from YFM Equity Partners (YFM).
The deal is the second from the PE house’s GBP80 million Buyout Fund II which closed just 12 months ago and another example of YFM’s strong regional presence, with this investment based in the South East of England.
The buyout was led by Scott Craig, managing director, who has worked alongside founder Roger Greene for the last 15 years, joining as an electrician engineer and working his way up
Horizon Capital, a UK technology services Buy & Build specialist, has backed Modern Networks, a successful provider of IT Managed Services and Connectivity to the Real Estate and Construction industry in a GBP40 million deal.
Modern Networks provides IT Support, connectivity and communications in an easy to consume integrated solution to over 2,000 sites across the UK. From its support centre in Hitchin the business delivers a high quality 24/7 service to users and serves a number of the largest commercial property managers in the UK.
The business has an ambitious growth strategy and the investment from Horizon Capital will
Vista Investors, a private equity investor operating from London and Milan, and Reed Capital, a privately held industrial holding company investing in private equity operating from Paris, are merging to form EIM Capital.
EIM Capital (Equity In Motion) will bring together Reed Capital’s reputation for operational management of acquired companies and Vista Investors’ international buyout and buy-and-build expertise. The founders have collaborated over the years on a number of deals and have between them forty years’ experience in private equity transactions and exits.
Luigi Chiaraviglio is the Managing Director of Vista Investors, having previously worked at private equity firms in
IK Investment Partners (IK), a Pan-European private equity firm, has closed the IK Small Cap III Fund (IK Small Cap III) at its hard cap with commitments of EUR1.2 billion.
The IK Small Cap III Fund was significantly oversubscribed and allocated exclusively to existing IK platform investors in just three months, having been raised on a fully virtual basis.
The Fund is more than double the size of its EUR550 million predecessor, IK Small Cap II Fund, and was raised exclusively with the support of existing investors across the IK platform.
IK Small Cap III will continue to
After a collapse in cross-border dealmaking in the first half of 2020 in the wake of the pandemic, foreign investment into the UK has risen considerably in recent months, according to the latest UK M&A data from Mergermarket.
Inbound M&A reached GBP58.7 billion (196 deals), over 3x higher than during the first quarter of 2020 (GBP18.6 billion). This also represents the highest quarterly inbound deal count since 3Q17 (200 deals).
Private equity buyouts in the UK grew to highest quarterly deal count on Mergermarket record in the first quarter of 2020, with sponsors spending a total of GBP20.5 billion
Events
12 November, 2026 – 8:00 am
12 November, 2026 – 5:00 pm
