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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
Despite efforts by private equity firms to tackle gender diversity, a recent survey of 289 private equity professionals (conducted by Investec and MJ Hudson) has revealed that women do not think that the industry is pushing hard enough with efforts to improve gender diversity, with almost half (48 per cent) stating that there has been little or no change.
Respondents did acknowledge, however, that more work is being done by employers to bridge the gap – 61 per cent of women said they agreed when asked whether their firm considers diversity and equal opportunities to be important.
When asked
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
In 2017, US Congress established the Federal Opportunity Zones Program, which was in many ways a stroke of genius. This Program provides investors tax relief while at the same time gives a serious capital injection to deprived and under-served communities across the country. US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin expects opportunity zones to attract USD100 billion in investment.
With approximately 8,700 opportunity zones certified by the US Department of the Treasury, the potential for real estate and private equity investors to revitalize communities has huge appeal, as this type of ‘impact investing’ has gained major traction recently. Investors can
1. A legal perspective – The way one thinks about a QOF, operationally, will largely depend on the Fund’s underlying strategy. A real estate fund strategy will differ from a private equity strategy, and there will be structural differences as to how these are run.
A private equity sponsor, for example, would likely manage investments through an intermediate corporate or partnership entity, which will itself qualify as an opportunity zone business.
“These businesses are going to be conducting activities within the opportunity zone, acquiring the relevant hard assets, and generally the model is going to work through the use of operating
Kingswood Holdings (Kingswood), a listed UK-based wealth and investment manager, has appointed Richard Klein as Head of Alternatives and Distribution.
Klein’s principal focus will be on providing existing and future clients with access to capital protected, yield-enhanced strategies managed by independent best in class asset managers with offerings in key asset classes including Private Equity, Real Estate, Infrastructure, Hedge Funds, Liquids & Credit.
These products are generally only available to institutional investors, but Kingswood is committed to providing investment opportunities to the mass affluent market. Richard joins on 1 March 2019 as a Partner and Managing Director, and will
Over three-quarters (79 per cent) of respondents to a new investor and operational due diligence (ODD) analyst survey by Corgentum are spending more time analysing compliance and regulatory risks in funds, compared to last year.
Recent key areas of focus during fund manager due diligence cited include the 2019 examination priorities announced by the United States Securities and Exchange Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE), Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and Brexit uncertainty. Additionally, respondents also indicated a 59 per cent increase in the time spent analysing cybersecurity related issues including the ongoing risks of phishing scams, email
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
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