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The Carlyle Group has made a significant investment in Addison Lee, a well-known brand in the transportation and private hire services in London and the South East of England.
Capital for this investment will come from Carlyle Europe Partners III, a EUR5.4bn fund that makes mid and large cap investments. Terms of the transaction have not been disclosed.
Founded in 1975 with one car, Addison Lee has grown to a fleet of over 4,500 vehicles. Today, Addison Lee has a significant, established footprint in private hire services across London carrying over 10 million passengers and couriering one million deliveries
Heritage Administration Services Limited (HASL) has acted for Greencoat UK Wind on its recent IPO and launch.
Greencoat is incorporated in England and Wales and structured as a closed-ended infrastructure investment company with an indefinite life and HASL has been appointed as the company’s administrator and company secretary.
Greencoat was admitted to the premium listing segment of the Official List of the UK Listing Authority and to trading on the London Stock Exchange’s main market for listed securities on 27 March 2013.
Following strong demand during the book-building process, Greencoat UK Wind placed 260 million shares at
Jersey Finance has welcomed the signing of a Double Taxation Agreement (DTA) between the authorities in Jersey and Luxembourg.
Geoff Cook (pictured), chief executive of Jersey Finance, says: “The DTA with Luxembourg is a welcome addition. There are strong commercial links between some firms in Jersey and those in Luxembourg and the agreement will therefore help to facilitate further business flows between the two jurisdictions, whilst once again demonstrating our commitment to international standards of information exchange through engagement at a political and regulatory level with countries in the EU.”
The agreement was signed on 17 April in
Gruner + Jahr, advised by CMS Hasche Sigle, has sold its stakes in various Polish companies that handle G+J’s magazine business in Poland to Burda International.
Bertelsmann and Constanze (Jahr Group) were also included on the vendor side.
The Polish G+J companies publish well-known titles such as Gala, Glamour and National Geographic.
The transaction is currently awaiting approval from the merger control authorities.
A team led by corporate partner Dr Henrik Drinkuth advised Gruner + Jahr on the cross-border transaction.
Silver Lake has held the final closing of Silver Lake Partners IV, its latest large-cap technology investment fund. The firm accepted limited partner capital commitments up to its cap of USD10bn, surpassing its fundraising target of USD7.5bn.
In aggregate with the general partner and affiliates, the USD10.3bn in total commitments for Silver Lake Partners IV is the largest amount ever raised for a technology investment-focused private equity fund.
"We received strong investor demand for this fund and are deeply gratified by the confidence in Silver Lake demonstrated by our limited partners, many of whom have been long-term investors with us,"
Venture capital firms that invest in female-led businesses see positive returns, says a report by the US Small Business Administration (SBA) Office of Advocacy.
The report, called Venture Capital, Social Capital, and the Funding of Women-led Businesses, focuses on women entrepreneurs’ access to equity funding and how social networks influence venture capital firms’ decisions to invest.
In the report, the authors, Joy Godesiabois and Lawrence Plummer, find that social capital ("who you know and how you know them") affects funding of women-led firms in different, sometimes conflicting ways.
Venture capital firms tend to invest with familiar social
Lyceum Capital-backed Access Group, a developer of business management software, has acquired SaaS-based staff planner and team management solution TeamSeer, increasing the number of subscribers to its cloud-based platform aCloud.
The transaction represents Access’ ninth add-on since Lyceum Capital invested in the company in March 2011.
Access is one of the top five fastest growing UK software developers in The Sunday Times Buyout Track 100 2012 and featured in last year’s Profit Track 100. It has over 300 customers across well-known brands including Saatchi & Saatchi, McCann Erickson, Siemens and the New York Stock Exchange.
The TeamSeer
The European Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (EVCA) has published Smart Choice: the case for investing in European venture capital.
EVCA secretary-general Dörte Höppner (pictured) says: “In Europe today, there is a combination of world-class, repeat entrepreneurs and experienced venture capital (VC) fund managers, with the right skills to commercialise innovation on a global scale.
“Europe’s start ups, and the infrastructure supporting them, have never been stronger and valuations are low, making it an ideal time to invest. VCs currently back around 3,000 companies per year in Europe but this figure could be much higher; the sector’s
European Capital and its affiliates have received proceeds of EUR7.2m from exiting their investments in Scaff’holding.
European Capital realised a circa 1.8x money multiple on its initial investment, representing a circa 13 per cent IRR.
In April 2007, European Capital invested EUR7.5m in the mezzanine facility, along with Capzanine, to support the secondary buyout of Scaff’holding by Equistone, formerly Barclays Private Equity. In October 2011, the company partially repaid the mezzanine facility and European Capital received EUR3.1m.
Scaff’holding, based in Paris, France, specialises in the rental and sale of scaffolding and shoring systems. Through its network of local
Fits.me has secured total series A investment of close to GBP5m led by existing investor SmartCap, with new participation from Conor Venture Partners, Fostergate Holdings and The Entrepreneur’s Fund.
Previously, in May 2009 and August 2010, the company received total seed and early-stage investment of just under GBP1.75m from Smartcap and angel investors, and GBP0.5m in grants.
Fits.me develops, markets and operates virtual fitting room solutions on a software-as-a-service (SaaS) basis for online clothing retailers, helping them to overcome the problems of low online conversion rates and high garment returns rates caused by doubt over fit and poor fit
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