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Grove Street Advisors, a discretionary private equity investor with USD6.4 billion under management, has added Bruce Ou as its third Principal, following Dr Kiran Rao in 2009 and Philippe Schenk in 2010. Ou will focus on fund investment activities across sectors including fund due diligence, evaluation and monitoring.
Ou first developed strong corporate finance skills while working in Monitor Group’s M&A and Corporate Finance group for three years. Following that, Bruce gained experience in evaluating and monitoring managers during his two years as an Investment Associate with Grove Street Advisors before going to business school. Through a summer internship
Anne Dolan, a chartered secretary with Walkers Management Services in the Cayman Islands, argues that it is telling that in the recent case regarding the collapsed Macro Fixed Income Fund, which resulted in a USD111m judgement against the fund’s independent directors, significant weight was given to documentary evidence of board meetings and the way in which these meetings were conducted.
In the case of Weavering Macro Fixed Income Fund Limited (In Liquidation) vs. Stefan Peterson and Hans Ekstrom, the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands has handed down a useful judgement that throws the spotlight firmly on directors and the
Peter J Thomson (pictured) has become a cornerstone investor in the Conservative Consumer Credit Fund.
LC Advisors, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Lending Club, serves as the General Partner of the Fund, which invests in the two highest grades of 36-month consumer loans originated through the Lending Club platform. In addition, Thomvest, Thomson’s venture fund, has taken an equity interest in Lending Club alongside Union Square Ventures.
“Our philosophy is to embrace and promote innovation,” says Thomson, chairman of Thomvest and director of Thomson Reuters Corporation. “We believe Lending Club is a remarkable financial innovation: it creates a more
Albion Ventures has invested GBP1.5million in partnership with Welsh based developer, Infinite Energy, to fund the development of a single 500kWp Wind Turbine on a brownfield site near Ebbw Vale in Wales.
The investment will create a special purpose vehicle (SPV) which will be owned by Albion Ventures’ funds and Infinite Energy. The site in Wales will benefit from the Feed-in-Tariff regime and is expecting to generate its first electricity in January 2012. The installation is expected to create enough clean energy to power 325 households. Under agreement, most of the energy will be used onsite by a tile manufacturer,
Atlas Holdings portfolio company RedBuilt, a leading supplier of engineered lumber products, has signed an agreement to purchase certain Standard Structures Inc (SSI) assets, such as equipment, raw materials inventory and intellectual property.
SSI, a leading manufacturer of glulam beams, I-joists and open-web trusses for commercial and multifamily roof and floor systems, plans to exit the engineered wood products business and restructure its remaining business around its core glulam product line. SSI’s president and CEO, Richard Caletti, cited extraordinary financial stress associated with the worst recession since the Great Depression as the cause in SSI’s Aug. 19 announcement.
“Standard Structures
Despite recent market conditions, the current investment environment makes dividend investing attractive for several reasons, says Fabian Degen, fund manager for dividend strategies, DWS Investments…
A relatively high dividend yield compared to bond yields which could attract further capital from bond markets to equity markets.
US companies are sitting on significant amounts of cash on their balance sheets and net cash flows are at a record high which could be a catalyst for further dividend payouts as well as increases in dividends.
The US tax rate on dividends will stay at 15% for the next two years making investors more
Following recent research from global investment banking group Baird, which showed that H1 2011 deals involving private equity firms had risen by 91.6% in value terms over H1 2010, further evidence of rising activity is emerging, says David Silver, Managing Director of Baird…
The trend is driven by the twin factors of buyout houses needing to realise profitable investments at attractive valuations, and corporates with healthy balance sheets looking to pursue growth opportunities after years of inactivity.
Baird has advised on five deals over the summer:
Kiwa, a certification company with inspection and lab operations, as well as training,
First State Investments has appointed Philippe Taillardat, who will co-head Infrastructure Investment Management Europe together with Danny Latham and work alongside Niall Mills (Head of Infrastructure Asset Management) and Marcus Ayre (Head of Infrastructure Transactions).
This latest senior addition to the team comes as First State plans to open its first continental European office in Paris and the First State European Diversified Infrastructure Fund (EDIF) approaches €600m in terms of client commitments.
Taillardat has 20 years of relevant experience in infrastructure and project finance, particularly in the energy sector. Since December 2010, he has been running his own consultancy
Split Rock Partners, a venture capital firm focused on software, Internet services, and healthcare has appointed Leo de Luna as a principal in its Menlo Park office.
De Luna will be identifying, evaluating and managing new later stage and secondary opportunities. He most recently served as a Vice President at Saints Capital, a firm specialising in secondary direct investments, where he sourced, executed and monitored various investments since 2005.
De Luna’s prior experience includes early-stage investing at Split Rock Partner’s predecessor firm, St Paul Venture Capital, technology investment banking at Lehman Brothers, and corporate development at Advanced Micro Devices.
International law firm Dechert LLP announced today that David A Vaughan has returned to the firm as a partner in the Financial Services Group. Vaughan left Dechert in March 2009 to join the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Investment Management, where he served for the last two years as the senior private fund policy adviser on all aspects of legal and regulatory policy related to private funds.
“We are pleased to have David back at Dechert,” says Joseph R Fleming, Co-chair of the firm’s Financial Services Practice Group. “His insight into the SEC will be of great value to
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