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Business Growth Fund (BGF), established to help Britain’s fast growing smaller and medium sized businesses, has appointed James Austin as Investment Director to expand its presence in the South West and South Wales and to help drive investment in the region.
Austin joins Regional Director Paul Oldham in Bristol and his appointment brings the BGF team to 48 people, working from six regional offices across the UK. He has been working with SMEs for more than 15 years, having previously worked at Grant Thornton, RBS and latterly the South team of LDC.
Since its launch in May, BGF has scaled its
Excellere Partners, a Denver-based private equity firm focused on partnering with middle-market entrepreneurs and management teams, has launched its second fund, Excellere Fund II.
In addition to the principals of Excellere investing their own capital, Excellere’s new USD465 million Fund II is comprised of blue chip institutional investors, including large state and local pension funds, insurance companies and other prestigious financial institutions. Many of these limited partners also invested in Excellere’s USD265 million initial fund (Fund I), which closed in February 2007.
Since its founding, Excellere has distinguished itself by deploying its proprietary buy-and-build investment strategy and value creation processes,
Paul McLaughlin has been appointed as head of operations for State Street’s Alternative Investment Solutions team in Guernsey.
McLaughlin, who has more than 15 years of experience in the alternative investment industry, joins State Street to help further build its alternative investment servicing business in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) with a particular focus on the private equity and real estate funds sectors.
McLaughlin joins from BNY Mellon in Dublin where he worked for 11 years, most recently as head of alternative investment servicing fund of funds and private equity for EMEA. He also gained experience with the
Chilton Trust Management, in affiliation with Chilton Private Clients, has hired Timothy Horan from Morgan Stanley Smith Barney as Executive Vice President and Chief Investment Officer – Fixed Income.
Horan, currently Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer at MSSB Fixed Income Investment Advisors, will join CPC on 3 January, 2012. In his new role, he will work closely with Richard L Chilton, Jr, Chairman of Chilton Trust and CPC and who will continue to serve as Chief Investment Officer – Equities.
Joining Horan will be four experienced fixed income investment professionals, Debra Crovicz, William McNaught and Nicholas Rafferty –
Research from PwC has found a significant slowdown in European financial services M&A activity during the third quarter of 2011. PwC believes however, that a number of specific financial services markets and sectors will remain relatively active areas of M&A during late 2011 and the early part of 2012.
The value of European financial services M&A activity during the third quarter of 2011 was EUR5.0bn, 25% lower than the prior quarter’s figure of EUR6.7bn and 76% lower than the comparable figure of EUR21.2bn recorded in the third quarter of 2010.
Total deal values for the second and third quarters of
Niagara LaSalle Corporation (Niagara LaSalle) has been acquired by strategic buyer Optima Specialty Steel, Inc. Niagara LaSalle is a portfolio company of private equity firm Kohlberg & Company. Harris Williams & Co. acted as the exclusive advisor to Niagara LaSalle.
The transaction closed on 5 December, 2011 and was led by Mike Hogan (pictured), Ned Valentine, John Arendale, Dave Kennedy and Doug Kinard from the firm’s Richmond office along with Jeremy Eberlein from the firm’s Cleveland office.
Niagara LaSalle is North America’s largest independent manufacturer of high quality engineered cold finished steel bars, serving a broad range of customers in
EMBL Ventures, a dedicated early stage life science investor and the venture capital arm of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), has held the first close of the EMBL Technology Fund II (ETF II) at EUR40 million (USD55 million).
Building on the scientific excellence of EMBL, EMBL Ventures remains focused on Life Sciences investments primarily in European biotechnology and medtech companies with innovative early stage technologies and products that have the potential to become first in class. EMBL Ventures plans to commit between EUR2 million and EUR5 million per investment.
EMBL Ventures typically plays a pivotal role in actively building
Gen II Fund Services has launched a free iPad and iPhone application for the private equity industry designed to enable investors to quickly and easily compute IRR and exit multiples on their investments.
"We are pleased to be one of the first to offer the private equity industry an easy and accessible way to calculate complex IRR returns," says Gen II Managing Principal Norman Leben. "With institutional investors constantly traveling, the mobility of this application allows them to make a quick determination of the performance of their investment. There are other IRR calculators in the market but we believe none
The Australian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (AVCAL) has welcomed the Commonwealth Government’s announcement to fund up to AUD100 million to venture capital (VC) funds to commercialise Australian innovation and research.
This exceeds the expected AUD60 million which was the remaining allocation for the IIF program.
The funding from the Innovation Investment Fund (IIF) program must be matched by private sector investors before VC fund managers can invest the “IIF tranche four” funds in early stage companies developing new technology.
AVCAL CEO Dr Katherine Woodthorpe (pictured) says the IIF program has proved successful since it started in 1997, enabling
The UK Government has published its response to its consultation on changing the VCT rules, including significant commitments that the Association of Investment Companies (AIC) is pleased to endorse.
Draft legislation reconfirms the Government’s desire to increase the range of companies eligible for VCT investment. This includes SMEs with: assets of up to GBP15 million before investment (up from the current ceiling of GBP7 million); up to 250 employees (up from the current limit of 50) and increasing the amount an individual SME can receive from GBP2 million to GBP10 million.
These rules have to be agreed with the
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