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Franklin Templeton Private Equity Strategy (FTPES), a fund advised by Darby Private Equity, has sold its equity holding in Symbiotec Pharmalab to private equity firm Actis.
Symbiotec, based in Indore in Central India, is engaged in research, development, manufacturing and marketing of research based active pharmaceutical ingredients for corticosteroids and hormones. Symbiotec has over 200 customers, including large multinationals as well as generic pharmaceutical companies.
FTPES, a fund advised by Darby, invested in Symbiotec in September 2011 to support its growth and backward integration plans.
FTPES was established in 2008 with total initial capital commitments of around Rs
The Abraaj Group has sold its entire stake in Tunisian pharmaceutical company Opalia Pharma to Recordati, an international pharmaceutical company listed on the Italian stock exchange.
The Abraaj Group invested into Opalia in 2009 and the deal marks the group’s first realisation in the Tunisian market. Over the past four years, Abraaj’s involvement with Opalia helped increase sales by 2.5x.
In addition to Abraaj’s stake, Recordati has agreed to acquire a total of 90 per cent of Opalia.
Opalia Pharma is a Tunisian pharmaceutical company with headquarters in Ariana, a suburb of Tunis. The company was established in
Vopne Capital, a San Francisco based private investment firm, has launched its first fund, Vopne Capital Fund I, with USD20m of equity capital.
Vopne Capital is focused on acquisitions, recapitalisations and financings of companies in the lower middle market, businesses with EBITDA of USD1m to USD5m.
“We’re excited to launch the fund,” says Jim Bloom, managing partner at Vopne Capital. “The lower middle market contains great companies whose access to capital is limited. Vopne Fund I provides us with dedicated capital for small business owners looking to sell, recapitalise or transition ownership of their company.”
Vopne is actively
InvestKL, Malaysia's capital city-investment agency, has called on British companies in the oil and gas, business services, technology and healthcare sectors to locate their Southeast Asian headquarters in Kuala Lumpur.
Speaking against the backdrop of the 9th World Islamic Economic Forum in London, Zainal Amanshah (pictured), chief executive of InvestKL, emphasised Kuala Lumpur's de-facto Pivot into Southeast Asia, stressing its strategic location and strong regional connectivity to neighbouring energy and technology markets in Southeast Asia as a key strength.
Along with Malaysia's position as one of the fastest growing and politically-stable economies in the region, he said that British
Luxembourg issued a clear signal of intent this year. Not only was the Grand Duchy one of the first EU Member States to implement the AIFM Directive on 15 July 2013, it also made significant amendments to the 1915 Company Law, within which the limited partnership regime is defined.
There are two key developments – the first is a revamp to the existing SCS (Société en Commandite simple), the well-known corporate limited partnership without shares. The second is the creation of a new Société en Commandite Spéciale (SCSp); a special limited partnership that is very similar to the well-known common
Closely understanding the needs of its private equity clients has led to KPMG Luxembourg’s corporate finance team re-engineering the valuation process to make it as cost efficient as possible.
Valuation is a well-known subject but until now private equity firms have never really entertained the idea of outsourcing the task. After all, they are the ones with intimate knowledge of their portfolio companies and many use bespoke calculations to price their book. “We have engaged in a number of discussions with private equity houses to explore how we could improve their valuation reporting either for internal purposes or for investor/regulator
By Alain Kinsch & Axelle Ferey – Porter formalised it in the 90’s: innovation is key to competitiveness. Luxembourg’s private equity industry, with the support of Luxembourg authorities, explored this path over the past ten years to establish the Grand Duchy as a European hub for private equity, not only from an international private equity transaction structuring perspective but also from the perspective of a fund structuring and domiciliation hub.
The same approach centered on the concept of innovation was adopted to transpose the Alternative Investment Funds Manager Directive (AIFMD) into Luxembourg law this summer
Indeed, the Law of 15
“It’s about providing efficiencies across asset classes. Whether it’s a limited partnership private equity fund, a FoHFs, a hybrid private equity fund, we offer those efficiencies under one hood, on one platform,” comments Eddie Russo (pictured), solutions consultant at Advent Software on Geneva World Investor, the firm’s integrated solution for portfolio management, investor accounting and servicing.
For private equity firms, the need for system consolidation is starting to grow. Not only are investors becoming more demanding in terms of the level of transparency they require but as the regulatory environment evolves so the need for greater operational efficiency to handle
“In my pan-European view this is the most effective change I’ve seen Luxembourg make in the last 10 years to boost its funds offering to the Private Equity industry,” suggests Justin Partington (pictured), Commercial Director at Ipes – one of Europe’s leading private equity fund administrators with more than USD50billion in funds under administration – in response to the amendments made to Luxembourg’s limited partnership regime.
“Speaking candidly, the SICAR hasn’t really attracted the interest of European private equity fund managers. For French and UK private equity managers in particular, this is a big development.”
Dr Martin Brockhausen, private equity
By James Williams – “What the Special Limited Partnership (SCSp) does is provide a legal vehicle that specifically and systematically addresses every area of concern for private equity managers when they look at what are the available options to them across different jurisdictions,” comments Daniel Richards, partner at Ogier (Luxembourg).
This summer, the Grand Duchy made the strategic decision to revamp its limited partnership regime (the societe en commandite simple or SCS) at the same time as transposing the AIFM Directive into national law. By doing so the message it intended to relay was clear: Luxembourg is ready to support
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