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State Street Corporation’s (STT) GX Private Equity Index, a benchmark for comparative analysis of private equity performance, which includes a comprehensive data set dating back to 1980, saw an overall return of 1.11 per cent in Q4 2015.
“Private equity funds posted a modest recovery in the fourth quarter after a brief drop in the previous quarter,” says Will Kinlaw, senior managing director and global head of State Street Associates, part of State Street Global Exchange. “Overall we have seen relatively steady performance in private equity investments for the past few years. The biggest driver in the fourth quarter rebound
Norsk Titanium AS, a supplier of aerospace-grade, additive manufactured, structural titanium components, has closed a USD10 million growth debt facility with Harbert European Growth Capital Fund I (HEGCF) as part of the company’s current aerospace production financing round.
The funds will be used to further strengthen Norsk Titanium’s leadership team and operations worldwide in support of aerospace qualification and production orders for precision structural components produced by the company’s patented Rapid Plasma Deposition (RPD) technology. The investment was led by Fahad Khan at HEGCF. Details of the investment were not released.
“Norsk Titanium is strategically expanding, and the addition of
Monroe Capital has acted as co-syndication agent on the funding of a senior credit facility to support Argyle Executive Forum’s (Argyle) acquisition of Innovation Enterprise. Argyle is an existing portfolio company of the Wicks Group.
Based in New York City and founded in 2004, Argyle is a provider of high-touch engagement events for Fortune 500 C-level executives. The company hosts more than 150 full-day forums, private dinners, virtual conferences, think tanks and roundtable discussions annually for its selective executive membership in the United States and Canada.
Innovation Enterprise is a leading producer of engagement events and marketing services. The acquisition
Lightbend (formerly Typesafe), the company behind the Reactive Platform that includes the Akka, Play and Lagom Frameworks as well as the Scala programming language, has closed a USD20 million Series C funding round led by Intel Capital.
Blue Cloud Ventures also joined Intel Capital as a new investor, with full participation from previous investors Bain Capital Ventures, Polytech Ecosystem Ventures and Shasta Ventures. Vibhor Rastogi, Director for Enterprise Software at Intel Capital, will join Lightbend's board of directors.
Enterprises including Walmart, Verizon, iHeartRadio, William Hill, and Samsung (see case studies) have adopted the Lightbend Reactive Platform to build low latency,
Global private equity group EQT has held the closing of the EQT Ventures Fund, a multi-stage venture capital fund advised by the EQT Ventures team at EQT Partners (EQT Ventures).
The fund will invest in fast-growing, innovative and tech-enabled companies across Europe, supporting great entrepreneurs throughout different stages of growth.
Thomas von Koch, Managing Partner and CEO of EQT, says: “There is a huge opportunity for venture capital investing in Europe – transformational shifts in technology are occurring across numerous industries and this disruption is spurring on new, innovative companies. EQT Ventures is ideally equipped to support great entrepreneurs in
Handelsbanken’s AB Handel och Industri subsidiary has sold all iof ts shares in Plastal Industri AB, the parent company of the Plastal Group. The purchaser is the Canadian Plasman Group.
With this transaction, Handelsbanken has recovered the total claims that were outstanding when the former Plastal Group went into bankruptcy. The transaction will have only a marginal effect on Handelsbanken’s profits and financial position.
“This is a good conclusion to Handelsbanken’s involvement in Plastal. The company will be part of a strong industrial group where the company can continue to develop its business,” says Magnus Sternbrink, Chief Executive of AB
Taiyo Pacific Partners has accumulated in excess of 5 per cent in Hitachi Maxell to become the second largest shareholder in the provider of micro batteries, camera lens and LED headlamp lenses for cars.
Taiyo Pacific Partners is a pioneer of friendly engagement investing in Japan and has been proactively working with senior management at its portfolio companies to enhance shareholder value for over 13 years.
Brian K Heywood, Chief Executive Officer and Founding Partner of Taiyo Pacific Partners, says: “The demise of cassette tapes and CD-ROMs means you probably haven’t heard the name Hitachi Maxell in a while but
NorthEdge-backed Accrol Group Holdings has revealed plans to to float on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange. Dealings are expected to commence on AIM on 10 June 2016.
Established in 1993 by the Hussain family, Accrol has grown to become a leading supplier of tissue products, supplying both the premium retail and UK discount markets. Accrol has a 35 per cent market share of the discount market and seven per cent. of the overall UK tissue market. The business manufactures a wide range of household and away from home tissue products for a number of blue-chip retailers and
Kirkland & Ellis International has appointed Stuart Boyd as a partner in the firm’s Corporate Practice based in London. Boyd focuses his practice on private equity.
“Stuart has built a reputation as one of the leading private equity lawyers in London,” says Jeffrey C Hammes, Chairman of Kirkland’s Global Management Executive Committee. “He is a dynamic and talented lawyer and a perfect fit for the practice as we further build out our European transactional offering to clients. We look forward to welcoming him to the Firm.”
Boyd will join Kirkland from the London office of Linklaters, where he advised private
A new report from Preqin has found that the proportion of infrastructure deals the US larger than USD1 billion reached record levels in 2015 as asset valuations continued to rise.
Twenty-seven per cent of all deals announced in 2015 were larger than USD1 billion, up from 20 per cent in 2014 and an increase of 17 percentage points from 2012. This has been matched by a decline in the proportion of smaller deals announced in the country; in 2010 deals valued at less than USD500 million represented 87 per cent of all infrastructure activity in the US; in 2015 this
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