Managers
AnaCap-backed heidelpay Group, a fintech service provider in Germany, has acquired point-of-sale specialist Alpha-Cash Payment GmbH.
The purchase of Alpha-Cash Payment is heidelpay Group’s second investment in 2019 following the acquisition of PayLater and collection specialist Universum Group back in late January.
Alpha-Cash Payment GmbH is now the third company within the heidelpay Group allowing cashless payments to be transacted at the point of sale (PoS). The group acquired Hamburg-based StarTec Payment & Service back in October 2017, followed in May 2018 by the purchase of Avanti Technology Graf GmbH, the leading commercial network provider in the Munich region.
Ipsum Group (Ipsum), backed by Aliter Capital (Aliter), has completed its third bolt-on acquisition – the Scotland, North of England and Midlands-based operations of utilities and infrastructure maintenance, inspection and repair services provider EEG.
The deal excludes EEG’s Andover-based South of England operations.
EEG has a network of strategically located depots, delivering a range of services to the UK utility, facilities management and infrastructure sectors, including drainage maintenance and repair, civil engineering, asset mapping and flood prevention. The investment in EEG will strengthen Ipsum’s existing drainage maintenance services and fleet of specialist vehicles, broaden its geographic footprint and add
Genstar Capital, a private equity firm focussed on investments in targeted segments of the financial services, software, industrial technology, and healthcare industries, has held the final closing of Genstar Capital Partners IX with USD5.5 billion in limited partner commitments.
In addition, Genstar has raised committed overage capacity of USD1.1 billion from select limited partners. The General Partner and affiliated entities are the largest investor in Fund IX, with over USD400 million of committed capital. Total capital raised, including Fund IX, the General Partner, affiliated entities, and the overage capacity is approximately USD7 billion.
The General Partner will continue to be
Planixs, a high-growth FinTech company, has secured an initial GBP3.5 million minority equity investment from BGF. The company will take advantage of a fast-growing market by using the funding to expand its global customer base, accelerate product development and support recruitment across the business.
Founded in 2011, Manchester-based Planixs works with global financial institutions such as Lloyds Banking Group, Barclays and Zenith Bank, in providing its market-leading product suite Realiti, a cloud-based and on premise technology solution suite delivering real-time intraday cash, collateral and liquidity management capabilities to the financial services industry.
Realiti helps firms to comply with global
Oxx, a growth capital firm focussed on B2B software companies, has led a USD8 million growth equity investment in Stockholm-based Funnel, a software company delivering automated data collection and transformation software to advertising and marketing business users.
Existing investors, including Balderton, Industrifonden and Zobito also participated in the round. The investment will help Funnel to continue its rapid growth and continue to expand internationally, including in the United States, where the company opened an office in 2016 and has since seen strong demand. The company’s strong traction with enterprises, including some of the world’s largest brands, and excellent metrics, evidence
SK Capital Partners, a private investment firm focussed on the speciality materials, chemicals and pharmaceuticals sectors, has closed SK Capital Partners Fund V with total committed capital of approximately USD2.1 billion.
Fund V includes a separate overage fund that will enable the firm to provide greater speed and certainty to sellers when it pursues larger transactions.
SK Capital Partners Fund V is the firm’s largest fund to date, eclipsing its USD500 million fund raised in 2011 and its USD1 billion predecessor fund raised in 2014. SK Capital currently has over USD4 billion of assets under management.
SK received
New research from eFront, a financial software and solutions provider dedicated to Alternative Investments, has shown that Chinese venture capital funds are outperforming those in the US and Europe in terms of return on capital.
A detailed analysis of venture capital funds globally shows that Chinese funds of vintage years 1997 to 2018 have delivered a returns of 1.79x (total value to paid-in), comparing favourably with US funds on 1.70x and Western European vehicles on 1.75x.
In addition, the research shows that Chinese funds take longer to reach maturity and have demonstrated longer hold periods for investments. In terms
Apax VIII, a fund advised by Apax Partners, is to sell its entire stake in AssuredPartners, a leading US insurance brokerage, to an investor group led by GTCR, a Chicago-based private equity firm.
GTCR previously owned AssuredPartners from its inception in 2011 until its sale to Apax VIII in 2015. The terms of today’s transaction, which is expected to close in the second quarter of 2019, have not been disclosed.
Apax IX, a separate fund advised by Apax Partners, will co-invest in the transaction alongside GTCR taking a significant minority stake in AssuredPartners. AssuredPartners’ management team retains its significant
FLOWERBX, an online, wholesale, flower-delivery service, has closed a GBP4.2 million (USD5.5m US) fundraising round. The new funding will pave the way for the company’s US launch, scheduled for May 2019.
This follows a successful raise of GBP1.5 million of seed equity in 2017, which was used to invest in a highly-scalable technology infrastructure and expansion into a number of key European regions, including France, Belgium, Ireland, Germany and the Netherlands.
The new round of funding comes from a small group of family offices and angel investors, including original and new investors. These include some of Britain’s most successful
When the International Monetary Fund released its forecast at Davos last month it expected a 1.6 per cent growth in Europe and a 3.5 per cent growth globally. When things are going well it’s all about value creation but when things are going badly it is the global macro environment – which perhaps some managers use as a safety blanket.
With global macro risks on the rise, GPs are bracing themselves for what could potentially be a major economic correction in 2019 but not all PE managers are worried.
Speaking at the 2019 International Private Equity Market event in
Events
12 November, 2026 – 8:00 am
12 November, 2026 – 5:00 pm
