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Almost a year ago to the day, the Editor-in-Chief of The Economist, Zanny Minton Beddoes, took to the stage at SuperReturn International and gave us a fairly gloomy outlook on what 2016 had in store.
She talked about how a confluence of geopolitical insecurity, weak economic growth and rising populism risked becoming a snowball that would put the liberal world order at risk.
"I argued that time was running out for the pro-globalisation centre and that there was a very real possibility of events that, just a year before, would seem unthinkable," she reminisced.
"I said "imagine a Donald Trump
The mid-morning session on Monday's Energy & Natural Resources Summit at SuperReturn International in Berlin, delved into the question of energy investing – from the perspective of LPs. Where were the opportunities, and what were the challenges?
Renewable energy
Paul Manias, Managing Director at OMERS Strategic Investments, felt that the trend on renewable development would continue despite its challenges: "The fact is that the whole utility sector needs to figure out how to integrate renewables onto the grid," he said.
Maurice Gordon, Head of Private Equity at The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America said that, in spite of its challenges,
K&L Gates has appointed James CH Lee as a partner in the private equity practice in the firm’s New York office.
He joins K&L Gates from Goodwin Procter.
Lee has extensive experience advising private equity funds, venture capital funds, private investment firms, high-net-worth family offices, and their respective portfolio companies in a variety of domestic and cross-border transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, growth equity investments, alternate vehicle investment structure transactions, recapitalisations, reorganisations, divestitures, and debt and equity security investments.
He represents clients across a range of industries, such as healthcare, technology, industrial technology, manufacturing and distribution, financial services
Boutique asset manager Unigestion has launched Uni-Global – Alternative Risk Premia, an actively managed strategy to provide investors with cost-effective and liquid sources of returns modestly correlated to equity and bond returns.
It complements Unigestion’s existing line of direct alternative offers, including the Uni-Global – Cross Asset Trend Follower, Uni-Global – Alternative Equities Compass World, the Unigestion Long/Short Global Opportunities fund and the Uni-Global – Absolute Return.
The launch of this strategy addresses three major concerns for investors and the asset management industry.
Firstly, expected returns for traditional investments are not very attractive, as bond yields remain at
Preston Hollow Capital has completed a USD39.37 million bond financing for Blue School, an independent pre-primary, primary and middle school located in New York City.
The transaction will facilitate the school’s continued growth and extension of its curriculum to older children.
Blue School began as a parent run playgroup in 2006 before establishing successful pre-primary and primary programmes in 2009, with the founding goal of creating a more complete, balanced and exuberant approach to education.
PHC’s financing will enable Blue School to continue this approach to extend from early childhood through eighth grade, effective in the 2017-2018 academic
Noerr has advised Oddo Seydler Bank on a capital increase with subscription rights at Deutsche Konsum REIT-AG.
The Noerr team, led by the Frankfurt-based capital market specialists Laurenz Wieneke and Stephan Schulz, also took a leading advisory role in drafting the prospectus for the client.
As a result of the transaction, Deutsche Konsum REIT-AG will be listed in the prime standard of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
The company’s share capital is to be increased by issuing up to 4.65 million new shares. The gross proceeds of some EUR39.6 million are intended to fund the further growth of the
Harvest Partners (HP SCF), the non-control private equity strategy of Harvest Partners LP, has appointed Chris Peyser as a senior associate on the investment team.
Peyser will evaluate, structure, execute and monitor portfolio investments.
He was most recently at Kelso & Company.
Jay Hegenbart, senior managing director and portfolio manager, HP SCF, says: “We have great confidence in Chris’s abilities and are very pleased that he has joined our team. We look forward to his contributions to our investment programme.”
Prior to joining HP SCF, Peyser was a senior associate at Kelso & Company, where he focused
BuyBay, a provider of total solutions for returned products in e-commerce and retail, has acquired a substantial investment of millions of euros from investment company Fortino Capital.
In addition to the investment, Fortino Capital will advise the management of BuyBay on realisation of its international growth ambitions.
This partnership will make it possible for BuyBay to achieve international business growth, ensure that retailers and e-tailers commit themselves to BuyBay quickly, and further professionalise the IT platform and logistics facilities.
Thijs Bosgoed, CEO of BuyBay, says: “On the one hand, the investment will enable us to enter new countries
Dealflo, a provider of end-to-end financial agreement automation services, has closed a GBP10 million investment round led by Holtzbrinck Ventures, with follow on investment from Notion Capital and participation from Frog Capital.
The investment follows Dealflo’s rapid growth delivering automated financial agreement processes through its cloud-based platform.
The funds will allow Dealflo to expand its commercial operations into new sectors and geographies, as well as invest in its product roadmap. This latest round of financing brings the total funding to GBP13.5 million.
Since 2012, Dealflo has been helping businesses automate financial agreements, specifically addressing issues of legal enforceability
Bloq has acquired Skry, a specialist in blockchain analytics, to enhance its suite of analysis tools and position the firm to maximise the value of blockchain data sets through artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Bloq is an enterprise software company focused on building and scaling blockchain networks for global companies.
The transaction, which closed on 24 February, is Bloq’s first acquisition and includes all of Skry’s intellectual property and team.
“Blockchain networks need more than a rudimentary finder or explorer,” says Jeff Garzik, CEO and co-founder of Bloq. “We’re ensuring that enterprises won’t have to ‘fly blind’ without
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