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BGF (Business Growth Fund) has expanded its team with the appointment of Paul Stevens, who joins from Octopus Investments.
Based in the London office, Stevens will focus on identifying investment opportunities in AIM listed companies as part of the BGF Quoted offering, which is led by Gavin Petken and Tom Jenkins and supported by BGF’s nationwide investment team.
Stevens has over 10 years’ experience investing in listed companies, having worked in the quoted smaller companies equities team at Octopus Investments, where he contributed to the outperformance of funds-under-management during that time.
Since its launch in 2014, BGF has
Pan-African private equity firm 8 Miles has led a USD80 million investment in Nigerian biscuit manufacturer Beloxxi Industries by a consortium consisting of African Capital Alliance (ACA), a Sub-Saharan Africa focused Private Equity firm, and DEG – Deutsche Investitions und Entwicklungsgesellschaft, the German Development Finance Institution.
The consortium has taken a significant minority stake to expand the capacity of Beloxxi, to address significant unmet demand and to grow its regional distribution presence. Additional details of the transaction have not been disclosed.
Nigeria’s biscuit sector has seen strong growth of 10 to 15 per cent per annum, and this is
21 Investimenti, an investment firm founded and led by Alessandro Benetton, is to sell a majority stake in Farnese Vini to NB Renaissance Partners, the private equity fund formed in 2015 by Neuberger Berman and Intesa SanPaolo.
Farnese Vini is a group active in the production, bottling and sale of Central/Southern Italian wine.
During 21 Investimenti’s three-and-a-half-year investment, the company has launched production of wine from Puglia, invested more than EUR10 million in production capacity in two modern plants in Abruzzo and Basilicata, doubled the number of employees and increased turnover from EUR32 million in 2012 to EUR56 million expected
Sun Capital Partners’ affiliated portfolio company Aclara Technologies has acquired the smart grid business of Tollgrade Communications.
The transaction includes the LightHouse distribution monitoring platform comprising Sensors and Sensor Management System (SMS) software with Predictive Grid Analytics, as well as a broad intellectual property portfolio. Financial terms have not been disclosed.
The addition of the LightHouse platform expands Aclara’s capabilities in distribution grid monitoring. Deployed at some of the world’s leading utilities, the Smart Grid LightHouse platform provides fault detection and location, power quality monitoring and classification of grid events to monitor the health of the distribution grid, make
National law firm Shoosmiths has appointed private equity specialist Amit Nayyar as partner in the firm’s corporate team in Milton Keynes.
Nayyar joins the firm from Hogan Lovells' London office, where he was a corporate partner with a focus on private equity and mergers and acquisitions. Previous to this, he held positions at White & Case and Pinsent Masons.
Nayyar has acted as lead counsel on a variety of high-profile buy outs, bolt on acquisitions, management incentive plans and exits both on domestic and multi-jurisdictional transactions. He is also actively involved in outbound and inbound investment work in India.
GigPeak, a specialist in semiconductor ICs and software solutions for high-speed connectivity and high-quality video compression over the Network and the Cloud, has closed its acquisition of Exccess Venture Fund holding Magnum Semiconductor.
Magnum Semiconductor is a provider of silicon ICs, SoCs, software, and IP for the professional video broadcast and IoT camera markets.
This marks the third consecutive exit for Exccess Venture Fund. Exccess Venture Fund, located in St. Charles, Illinois historically looks for companies that have rapidly growing multibillion-dollar addressable markets, game-changing technology, ability to achieve market dominance and a management team that has demonstrated the ability
Avedon Capital Partners and management have sold Tesch Inkasso Group, a German debt collection company, to Lowell GFKL Group, a credit receivables management backed by the Permira Funds and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP).
Tesch Inkasso is headquartered in Wiehl, Germany. Its core business is to recover debt claims, mostly from private debtors in the name of its clients.
Tesch has around 10,000 unique clients and a volume of receivables serviced of approximately EUR2 billion with leading positions in the utilities and eCommerce sectors. Tesch currently employs around 430 trained professional staff in its three locations in Gummersbach, Krefeld
An Apollo Global Management-backed consortium of investors is supporting a management-led buyout (MBO) of operational support and risk management services provider Constellis.
The consortium includes Jason DeYonker, chief executive officer of Constellis, president of the firm Dean Bosacki and certain other members of management.
It is expected that Forte Capital, Manhattan Partners and a group of existing co-investors will also be involved in the consortium.
Terms of the deal have not been disclosed.
The transaction is conditioned on customary regulatory reviews and approvals and is expected to close prior to the end of the third quarter. Holders
Mercury Fund, an early-stage venture capital firm investing in entrepreneurs and innovation that originate in the middle of the US, has hired Jackie Pfister as marketing coordinator.
Pfister, the first marketing hire for Mercury, will support the firm’s investment team in their marketing and branding efforts in order to promote thought leadership and relevant industry-related content.
Pfister will also work with Mercury’s portfolio companies in helping them reach their branding, marketing and PR goals.
“We are thrilled that Jackie has joined the Mercury team to help expand and professionalise our marketing activities,” says Blair Garrou, co-founder and managing
Branding automation company Bynder has secured USD22.3 million (EUR20 million) in Series A funding from Insight Venture Partners, a New York-based venture capital and private equity firm.
The funding is a milestone for the ‘branding automation’ category as marketers seek a solution to deliver brand consistency across all channels and international markets at the touch of a button.
The capital will be used to continue international growth and to support further product development enabling brands globally to easily create, find and use digital content. Jeff Horing, managing director at Insight Venture Partners will join the company’s board of directors.
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