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By George Ralph (pictured), RFA – Cyber security has never been as important as it is today. The Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2017, published recently by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and undertaken by Ipsos Mori highlights some statistics that should make even the most jaded CIOs sit up and take notice.
Of the 1500+ businesses surveyed, 74 per cent say cyber security is a very high priority for their senior management, and 67 per cent have spent money on cyber security in some shape or form in the past year. For medium sized businesses, the number of organisations
Crown Capital Partners, a provider of growth capital to mid-market companies, has completed a USD50 million closing for Crown Capital Fund IV, bringing the current total capital committed to the Fund to USD225 million.
To date, USD190 million has been invested by the Fund in nine transactions, and, net of repayments, USD167 million is currently invested.
“This upsizing further underscores the quality of our growing portfolio and the strong demand from our institutional limited partners,” says Chris Johnson (pictured), Crown’s President & CEO. “We continue to deliver on our key milestones. We have completed four transactions to date in
Catapult’s portfolio business, BWB Consulting, one of the UK’s leading design engineering consultancies, has become part of the global transport engineering giant CAF Group.
The transaction, which will see BWB embark on significant expansion in the UK and abroad, has delivered an excellent return for the Catapult Growth Fund with an initial cash return in excess of 2.5x. Catapult Growth Fund also retains a significant portion of its shareholding in the business.
A multi award-winning business, delivering advice and solutions to clients in the property, development and construction industries, BWB employs more than 300 people across seven offices in
The German mid-cap LBO market generated another round of strong growth in the first half of 2017. The latest MidCapMonitor prepared by the investment bank GCA Altium that regularly analyses leveraged buyout finance transactions with a credit volume of between EUR20 million and EUR500 million recorded 41 transactions in the first six months of 2017. This represents a rise of 46 per cent compared with the same period last year.
The proportion of new finance transactions, that is, acquisition financing, did slip from 56 per cent of transactions for the entire year of 2016 to 47 per cent for the
Private equity firm Boyne Capital Partners has closed its BCM Fund I with USD126 million of total capital commitments, surpassing the original target of USD100 million.
The Fund includes select limited partners representing insurance companies, fund of funds, family offices and individuals. The Fund targets investments in the lower middle market sector, specifically companies with revenues of less than USD100 million and with EBITDA of USD2 million to USD10 million.
Boyne Managing Partner, Derek McDowell, says: “We are pleased with the successful and rapid fund raise, having completed the process in less than a year. We are grateful to
Attend almost any financial industry event today and the chances are a panel discussion will refer to blockchain and the transformation opportunities it could afford the industry. It has become a buzzword, a term that one has to pretend to understand and nod sagely whenever it comes up in conversation. If you don’t understand blockchain, you’re not in the club, cast aside as a technological Luddite.
In short, blockchain is a shared digital, immutable ledger that records events or transactions within a fully distributed or peer-to-peer network, whether public or private, and verifies them across the number of participants operating
Private equity house Key Capital Partners (KCP) has acquired a minority stake in London-based independent performance media agency, MC&C. This is KCP’s third investment from its latest fund.
The capital will be used to grow the firm, enabling key hires, further investment in operational technology, financing potential acquisitions, and acceleration of international growth. The investment triggers the formation of a new MC&C Group comprising MC&C London, MC&C Muse and the newly-formed MC&C International.
KCP partner Mike Fell joins a new group executive board alongside founder Mike Colling, executive chairman of MC&C London Steve Booth, UK managing director Mark Jackson and
Union Capital Associates, a lower middle-market private equity firm, has closed its most recent pool of capital – Union Capital Equity Partners II. The oversubscribed Fund closed at its hard cap of USD200 million.
The Fund will invest in smaller U.S. founder-owned businesses, where Union Capital is typically the first institutional investor. Union Capital has a 50 year history of successfully partnering with business owners, entrepreneurs and management teams. Union Capital’s investment team has spent 12 years working together on private investments, and is supported by several of its former CEOs that provide general operations expertise to assist portfolio company
By Nick Bayley (pictured), Duff & Phelps – Unsurprisingly, even a MiFID II geek like me prefers to spend time enjoying the Lions tour and Wimbledon than with the FCA’s second MiFID II Policy Statement which runs to over a thousand pages, including the Handbook text.
Much work is still to be done, decisions to be made, vendors to be selected, contracts to be updated. Hopefully, though, before people disappear for their summer holidays, the following mid-year checklist will help them to serve a few aces. Such that when everyone returns at the start of September, discussions can move along
Funds managed by Alpina Partners (Alpina) have invested in New Solutions (New Solutions) a provider of software solutions for the digitalisation of business processes on the shop floor.
The founder Christian Ehrenschwendtner will stay on board as a managing director and shareholder.
Since its foundation in 1999, New Solutions has developed into one of the leading providers of software solutions for the digitalization of production-related processes involving employees, production equipment as well as external partners. With the digital shift book “Finito”, the company offers a modular, web-based solution. In addition, New Solutions provides “CheckWare”, a solution for electronic checklists.
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