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By Jamie Berry, Chairman, Berry Asset Management – It was the night before Christmas; a solitary figure shuffled through the fast emptying streets around the Bank of England. The Christmas parties were coming to a close. He hadn’t been invited to any: his gloom laden Scrooge like views on markets did nothing to induce festive cheer.
“It’s going to be a terrible year ahead,” he said, to a huddle of revellers on a street corner. “It’s a great time to be pessimistic.”
“In January, the USA faces its fiscal cliff, and this will lead to a double dip recession
GI Partners, a middle market private equity firm, has acquired a data centre and office building in San Diego.
The investment was made through DataCore, a fully discretionary core real estate fund managed by GI Partners that was launched earlier this year with the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS).
CalSTRS created DataCore as a core investment vehicle to invest in technology-focused real estate in the US, including data centres, internet gateways, corporate campuses for technology tenants and life science properties located in primary MSAs and leased to industry leading tenants. This is the first investment for the DataCore fund.
The UK Treasury has allocated Prudential Capital Group GBP200m from a total of GBP700m as part of a partnership to make more capital available to mid-sized UK businesses.
Prudential Capital Group is an investment manager focused on providing capital for middle-market, public and private companies, and an investment business of Prudential Financial.
The GBP200m was allocated to the Pricoa Sterling Fund, which, consistent with the objectives of the public/private partnership, will invest in debt securities of UK companies with less than GBP500m in annual revenue. The funds will be invested alongside the adviser’s parent and other institutional investors.
Prudential Capital
Graycliff Partners has completed a mezzanine investment in Naumann Hobbs Material Handling.
Headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, Naumann Hobbs is a full-service material handling equipment distributor and aftermarket service provider.
Graycliff provided subordinated debt financing in support of a recapitalisation of the company.
Graycliff, a middle market investment firm, was founded in November 2011 by the former management team of HSBC Capital, the US and Latin American private equity investment group at HSBC.
Graycliff will continue its mezzanine investment strategy in Graycliff Mezzanine II by partnering with profitable mid-sized businesses providing capital for acquisitions, management buyouts, recapitalisations, growth and development. The
Fulcrum Equity Partners has led a USD1.9m series A growth equity financing for Bright Light Systems (BLS), a designer, manufacturer and seller of efficient lighting solutions with a particular focus on light emitting plasma technology.
BLS has also developed a wireless control software system for the remote management of its proprietary luminaires.
"We are excited to partner with Fulcrum to fuel our growth as we look to build a world-class company that can make a positive impact on the environment for generations to come," says Brad Lurie, chief executive of BLS. "This transaction, coupled with Fulcrum’s experience in building premier
Wells Fargo Global Fund Services has opened an office in Hong Kong, located in Wells Fargo’s existing local office in Central.
The Global Fund Services’ platform uses a platform and technology that provides traditional fund administration services, operational support, derivatives processing, bank debt processing, and cash/collateral management to alternative investment and private equity firms.
“We are committed to supporting our suite of industry offerings throughout the Asian region,” says Celia Choh, head of fund services Asia. “This expanded local presence is carefully integrated into our global platform, which leverages Wells Fargo’s market experience and expertise.”
Johnson Har will lead the
Costanoa Venture Capital has formally launched with a USD100m early-stage fund.
The firm will focus on providing series A and seed investments from USD500,000 to USD3m in cloud-based services for businesses and consumers leveraging data and analytics.
Founder and managing partner Greg Sands (pictured) started the firm after more than a decade of investing in cloud-based services, such as Allbusiness.com, Feedburner, Merced Systems, QuinStreet, and Youku.
Recognising that angels and larger VCs are not always equipped to play an active and engaged, long-term role in nascent start-ups, Costanoa’s mission is to be a hands-on, value-added partner to early stage entrepreneurs
Nautic Partners has completed the sale of Aavid Thermalloy to an investor group led by Audax Private Equity.
The terms of the transaction have not been disclosed.
Headquartered in Concord, New Hampshire, Aavid is a designer and manufacturer of high-performance thermal management products. Aavid’s products are used to dissipate heat and maintain optimal temperatures of electronic components that are used in servers, telecommunications equipment, transportation systems and industrial electronics.
“We are very fortunate to have partnered with an outstanding management team at Aavid,” says Doug Hill (pictured), managing director of Nautic. “During the last two years the company has experienced
LeapFrog Investments has appointed two new partners, both dedicated to growing the group’s portfolio of financial services companies in South and Southeast Asia.
“LeapFrog is building on its success in emerging Asia, having repeatedly invested in global brands of tomorrow, and accelerated their growth and performance,” says LeapFrog founder Andrew Kuper. “With Michael and Stewart’s deep financial sector expertise and networks, we expect to build on this extraordinary track record and further scale our impact.”
Michael Fernandes has nearly 20 years of experience in operations, consulting and investing. He was previously country head for India for Khazanah Nasional, the
Dutch private equity firm Egeria has reached a first and final close on its Egeria Private Equity Fund IV, successfully hitting the EUR600m hard-cap.
The fund was oversubscribed, achieving the close after a swift and targeted fundraising that started mid-September.
The fund will continue to target buy-out opportunities in the Dutch mid-market, leveraging its network and reputation with business owners to source attractive, proprietary opportunities.
Due to the high levels of interest, the Fund was only shown to existing investors and a limited number of new investors, with who Egeria has built a relationship over the past years. Around 80
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