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Six months on from its launch in June, Cambridge & Counties Bank, which focuses on established small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs), says it is on course to meet both its lending and deposit targets.
The lending market continues to be difficult for SMEs, with recent research carried out by Cambridge & Counties revealing that businesses across Britain had 47,777 overdraft and loan applications worth as much as GBP2.5bn rejected in H1 2012.
In this challenging market, the new bank is on track to achieve its lending targets. It has also revealed that deposits currently exceed target following the
CitySprint has acquired Eagle Express Worldwide Couriers, its seventh acquisition since it was backed by UK mid-market private equity house Dunedin in December 2010.
This comes at a time of high transactional activity for Dunedin, which in the past two weeks has announced its exit from conference and training venues business, etc.venues, and the management buyout of Premier Hytemp which Dunedin backed in a GBP34.5m transaction.
Nicol Fraser, partner at Dunedin who sits on CitySprint’s board, says: “This acquisition demonstrates Dunedin’s ongoing commitment to supporting the growth of our portfolio companies. We have now completed a total of 14
Huron Capital Partners’ portfolio company, Hughes Associates, has acquired Anoba Consulting Services, a niche engineering firm specialising in probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) and other risk-modelling services.
Mandated by the federal government, PRA uses highly analytical software programmes and risk models that allow nuclear power plants to assess the underlying operational risks in their business and the potential impact of catastrophic events.
Prior to the acquisition, Anoba had been a key strategic partner for Hughes, often serving as a subcontractor on its nuclear power generation consulting projects. The transaction brings Anoba and Hughes together and expands Hughes’ capabilities in the rapidly
Dallas-based private equity firm Highlander Partners has acquired Custom Window Systems (CWS), a designer, manufacturer and marketer of impact-resistant and non-impact windows and doors, primarily serving Florida and other coastal markets in the Southeastern US.
CWS will continue to operate under its existing name and operating structure.
Greg Schorr, a senior adviser for Highlander, will join CWS as the president and chief executive officer. Schorr was formerly the president and chief operating officer of the parent company of Simonton Windows.
John Cwik, the company’s founder, president and chief executive, will continue to work with CWS in a consulting and advisory
Brynwood Partners VI has sold its investment in Sun Country Foods to Continental Mills.
Terms and conditions of the transaction have not been disclosed.
Sun Country Foods, headquartered in Norwood, Massachusetts with a manufacturing facility in Manhattan, Kansas, manufactures and markets the iconic Kretschmer Wheat Germ brand. Founded in 1936 by Charles Kretschmer, the brand has a 90 per cent market share in the US wheat germ category and is offered in two flavours: Original Toasted and Honey Crunch.
Sun Country Foods was formed by Brynwood VI in 2011 to acquire the Kretschmer Wheat Germ brand from The Quaker Oats
CAIS, the financial-technology solutions provider, has launched the CAIS Exchange, the first online alternative investment marketplace designed for the wealth management industry.
The CAIS Exchange (CAIS-X) offers access to a broad menu of top-tier funds and products, independent due diligence reports provided by Mercer, portfolio construction and analytics tools and an electronic subscription and redemption process for streamlined trade execution.
CAIS-X is the first complete solution to offer access, oversight and execution in a single venue, empowering wealth management professionals with institutional quality products coupled with time-saving operational efficiency.
The funds and products that list on CAIS-X represent a broad
Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), a national non-profit organisation, has launched an ESG Management Tool for the private equity industry.
Created in collaboration with Irbaris, the tool defines for the first time the practices necessary to build a successful environmental, social and governance management programme and a framework to assess, analyse and improve ESG management at private equity firms of all sizes.
"EDF has been a value-added partner for Carlyle in the development of our ESG practices," says Bryan Corbett, principal at The Carlyle Group. "As the private equity industry’s interest in ESG issues continues to grow, there’s a clear market
Private equity investors (LPs) whose remuneration is tied to the performance of their portfolios have achieved significantly higher returns than their peers over the last five years, according to Coller Capital’s latest Global Private Equity Barometer.
Over half (55 per cent) of LPs with performance-related pay have achieved net annual returns greater than 11 per cent over the last five years, compared with less than a fifth (19 per cent) of other LPs.
Limited partners’ plans and expectations for private equity are positive overall, but LPs identify discrete challenges in each of the three key regions of the private equity
The Association of the Luxembourg Fund Industry (ALFI) has published its collection of best practices for setting-up and servicing Islamic funds to provide a greater level of understanding and consistency of the requirements and expectations to this growing market sector.
“2012 has been a very active year for the Luxembourg Islamic finance community with several new Shariah-compliant funds launched. Luxembourg currently ranks number five worldwide and first in Europe in the number of Shariah-compliant domiciled funds, at 41 funds with EUR4bn in assets under management,” says Marc Saluzzi (pictured), chairman of ALFI.
Islamic funds are investment vehicles that follow
Monroe Capital has funded a unitranche credit facility and equity co-investment to support the recapitalisation of Playtime by private equity sponsor Geneva Glen Capital.
Based in Englewood, Colorado, Playtime is a provider of interactive healthy play areas and playground equipment for indoor, outdoor and water play. The company markets, designs, manufactures and installs custom soft sculpted play areas in many market segments including shopping centres, restaurants, airports, stadiums, childcare centres, healthcare centres, fitness centres, churches, resorts, recreation centres, water parks, and museums.
Founded in 2001, Playtime has completed thousands of installations in all 50 states and 20 countries.
Theodore L
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