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Business Growth Fund (BGF), established to help the UK’s fast-growing smaller and medium sized businesses, has made its first oil and gas industry investment in STATS, an oilfield service sector business. This is BGF’s first investment in Scotland and its fourth investment since the start of 2012.
BGF is investing GBP7.8m to back STATS’ CEO, Peter Duguid, who together with his sister, Lorraine Porter, founded the company in 1998. Based in Kintore, near Aberdeen, STATS is an engineering-led business that provides isolation services for onshore and offshore oil and gas pipelines. Its proprietary tools, manufactured in-house, are used to plug
Private equity firms will propel deal-making forward in 2012 as they race to put vast sums of ageing dry powder to work before investment periods expire, but face strong headwinds, says Bain & Company.
According to the report, uncertainties in the economic outlook and volatile equity markets will make it difficult for buyers and sellers to agree on price. Bain finds that debt-market conditions were less favourable at the start of this year than in 2011. One major concern: whether the supply of debt will be able to keep pace with demand, even if deal-making picks up–though say the authors,
DLA Piper has appointed Richard Reilly as a partner in the firm’s global investment funds practice. He will be based in the firm’s New York office and he will also be working in conjunction with the firm’s London office.
Reilly was formerly global co-head of White & Case’s Securitisation Group and a partner in its Investment Funds Practice. He has an extensive securities practice that focuses on investment fund formation in the United States and Europe, and represents credit-oriented hedge funds and private equity-style funds, as well as placement agents. In addition, Reilly has extensive securitisation, structured finance and derivatives
Private equity houses are parachuting more interim managers into their portfolio businesses to implement turnaround strategies in order to manage debt levels and boost profitability, according to Interim Partners.
Interim Partners says that around 80% of the mandates it receives from private equity houses are now for interim managers to implement turnaround strategies. This reverses the pre-credit crunch trend when 90% of private equity mandates were related to pre and post-acquisition work – such as due diligence and implementing post acquisition management changes.
Simon Gough (pictured), Director of Private Equity at Interim Partners, says: “Portfolio companies can be
In a “familiar” move, Amin Amiri of a2e Venture Catalysts, has acquired the worldwide business and operations of Omnova Wallcovering (UK) Limited known as Muraspec, which was part of the commercial wall covering business of OMNOVA Solutions, a US based conglomerate.
Net assets of USD11million were purchased by using only USD4m of external debt and the resulting robust financial structure will allow investments in brand and equipment. The deal includes the entire manufacturing and warehousing facilities in Kent and Hemel Hampstead and the worldwide sales and distribution network of Muraspec, operating from bases in London, Paris, Middle East, Dubai, India
The Currency Cloud, an FX payments automation platform, has secured USD4m in Series-A funding, led by Atlas Venture with follow-on participation from Anthemis Group. The company had previously raised USD2M from Anthemis and others.
The funding will be used to ramp commercial activity and continue product development. More than 100 corporate customers already use the company’s SaaS offering and more than 20 platform partners have signed on to use the company’s API.
The Currency Cloud’s Software as a Service (SaaS) offering is designed to reduce costs and transform the payments infrastructure into a frictionless process for making and receiving international, multi-currency
Apex Fund Services has successfully completed a Type 2 examination under Statement on Standards for Attestation Engagements No.16 (SSAE 16), and under the International Standard on Assurance Engagements, Assurance Reports on Controls at a Service Organization (ISAE 3402).
A key determination for completing an ISAE 3402 / SSAE 16 examination is that an independent service auditor successfully examined the system under audit for processing user entities transactions during the period of audit, as well as the suitability of the design and operating effectiveness of controls based on the defined control objectives.
This examination was performed by KPMG in
The Aureos Malaysia Fund (AMF) has invested USD5 million in the market-leading Malaysian water filtration company, NEP Holdings (Malaysia) Berhad (NEP).
AMF is managed by Aureos South-East Asia Managers Ltd, a subsidiary of Aureos Capital Limited, the leading private equity investor in small and mid cap companies in emerging markets. The investors of AMF are CDC Group plc (the United Kingdom’s development finance institution), Credit Guarantee Corporation Malaysia Berhad & the Employees Provident Fund of Malaysia.
NEP is involved in the research, design and development, assembly, distribution and rental of water filtration systems under its DIAMOND brand name.
RCapital has made a growth investment in TMKG Limited and its subsidiaries (Matrix Knowledge, a provider of information management, analysis and research services.
The undisclosed sum invested by RCapital will enable Matrix Knowledge to develop and grow its advisory, research and technology businesses in UK, continental Europe and USA.
Commenting on this announcement, Jamie Constable founder of RCapital, says: “Matrix Knowledge is a leader in its field. The team have built a solid reputation for delivering valuable insights. Matrix Knowledge develops cutting edge research which informs and enables organisations to directly influence and shape public policy on health,
Business VoIP telephony and Internet provider Gradwell has today announced a significant “4×4” expansion plan – four times larger in four years – supported by a GBP1.15 million investment from regional equity fund Altitude Partners LLP.
Gradwell was founded in 1998 by Dr Peter Gradwell, whilst studying at the University of Aberystwyth, as a means of offering small businesses his proprietary ‘Voice over Internet Protocol’ (VoIP) system. Now based in Bath, Gradwell has a turnover of GBP5m, a team of 60 and serves 12,000 UK Small Businesses.
The investment from Altitude Partners will enable Gradwell to significantly scale
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