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Aureos Capital Limited (Aureos) has reached a final close of the Africa Health Fund, exceeding its target by raising USD105.4 million from a range of private sector and development finance institutional investors.
The Africa Health Fund is managed by Aureos, a private equity fund management company specialising in small and medium sized businesses in emerging markets.
The Africa Health Fund was established by Aureos in June 2009 with the International Finance Corporation, the African Development Bank, DEG, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as cornerstone investors.
Subsequent investors include private sector investors such including a major Dutch bank, Elma
Octopus Investments (Octopus) is reducing its annual management charge (from 1.75% to 1.25%) and capping the running costs on its flagship solar Venture Capital Trust (VCT) product, Octopus VCT 3&4. Adviser fees remain unchanged.
This action has been taken to ensure that, despite the reduction in Feed‐in Tariffs (FiT) for solar installations connected after 12 December, Octopus can continue to offer Octopus VCT 3&4 with the same target returns as originally envisaged, with tax‐free dividends of at least 5p per year beginning in 2013.
Octopus Managing Director Paul Latham says: “When the FiT reduction was announced, we wanted to make
Mid Europa Partners has acquired Dr n med Teresa Fryda Laboratorium Medyczne through a jointly controlled entity, Polska Grupa Laboratoriów Medycznych. This transaction marks a further step towards the consolidation of the Polish laboratory market, which was initiated in January 2011 through the acquisition of a strategic stake in Diagnostyka (Diagnostyka), the Polish market leader.
Fryda is one of the leading players in the Polish laboratory diagnostics market, offering services to hospitals, private clinics and individuals. In 2010, the Company performed circa 10 million tests in more than 30 laboratories across Poland.
Paweł Padusiński, Director at Mid Europa Partners, says:
BNP Paribas Clean Energy Partners Ltd has completed the purchase of the Sleaford Straw-fired Renewable Energy Plant from ECO2 Ltd for its Clean Energy Fund. The completion of the deal marks the inclusion of the first biomass generation in the Fund and a significant step towards the completion of the diversified European portfolio.
The Fund has now completed 10 deals in wind power, solar photovoltaics and now biomass and has assets in Italy, France, UK and Ireland.
Joost Bergsma (pictured), CEO of BNP Paribas Clean Energy Partners, says: “This is a hugely significant deal, not only for the Clean Energy
Cambridge based small cell innovator www.ipaccess.com has closed a new round of funding, raising some USD15m from its current investors and from a major new backer.
The company’s existing investors Amadeus Capital Partners, Cisco, Intel Capital, Qualcomm, Rothschild & Cie Gestion, Scottish Equity Partners and TE Connectivity all participated in the funding and re-affirmed their commitment to the small cell market.
CEO Simon Brown confirmed the capital raised will be used to continue the acceleration of the company’s small cell product development roadmap and deployment activities.
“We are delighted with this show of support from our investor partners,” says Brown.
The European Investment Fund (EIF) has invested in Bridges Ventures Fund III, a UK-focussed sustainable growth investor, which held its first closing at GBP72m. This is EIF’s first commitment into the impact investing segment and illustrates its willingness to support European social entrepreneurship.
Bridges Ventures will target ambitious businesses across four key impact themes: Underserved Areas (meaning economically deprived areas); Environment; Education & Skills and Health & Wellbeing, where underlying social or environmental problems create an imperative for change and attractive growth opportunities for entrepreneurial businesses.
Through the success of its two predecessor funds (Bridges I and II, with similar
SEI has been selected by EIG Global Energy Partners to provide an operational outsourcing solution for the firm’s alternative investment business.
Given its recent spin-out from Trust Company of the West and its aggressive growth projections, EIG required a partner with a global presence as well as greater processing depth and power to accommodate the increasing number of investors and expanding quantity of data. This is the latest in a series of private equity wins for SEI as more firms adopt operational outsourcing to focus resources on core business functions.
Under the agreement, SEI will provide a full range
Blue Coat Systems, a provider of Web security and WAN optimisation solutions, has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by an investor group led by San Francisco-based private equity investment firm Thoma Bravo, LLC, in a transaction valued at approximately USD1.3 billion.
The Blue Coat Board of Directors has approved the agreement and resolved to recommend that the shareholders of Blue Coat adopt this agreement. Blue Coat will continue to operate with its focus on Web security and WAN optimisation.
The investor group is led by Thoma Bravo and includes the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (Teachers’) through its
Aureos Capital Limited has expanded its Asia team with the appointment of Ashish Patel as Partner for Asia. Aureos is a private equity fund management company specialising in investing in small and medium sized businesses in emerging markets.
Patel spent over a decade at Intel Capital, the private equity arm of international technology company Intel, where he was Managing Director for Europe, Middle East and Africa from 2003. He joins from AVG Technologies, the global security software company, where he was head of Strategy, Emerging Markets and Corporate Development since 2010.
He has over 15 years’ experience working with
Sovereign Capital, the UK private equity Buy & Build specialist, has appointed Sunil Jain and Nick Miller as Investment Managers. These hires further strengthen the investment team following the appointments of Manish Miglani and Rob King earlier this year.
Prior to joining Sovereign, Sunil was an Investment Manager at Blenheim Chalcot, the investment group, where he predominantly focused on education, technology and financial services. Previously Sunil spent five years at Oliver Wyman Financial Services, where he specialised in financial services strategy, working predominantly with insurance and private equity companies. Sunil holds a Masters in Chemical Engineering from the University of
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