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UK student accommodation developer and manager the UNITE Group estimates the net asset value (NAV) of the UNITE UK Student Accommodation Fund to be GBP0.808 per unit as at 31 December 2010.
The figure reflects an increase of 1.1% during the fourth quarter and an uplift of 6.0% in the 12 months to 31 December 2010 (30 September 2010: GBP0.799 per unit, 31 December 2009: GBP0.762 per unit).
In arriving at the value of the fund’s units, its property portfolio – now comprising 21,697 beds in 64 properties across 20 UK markets – was independently valued at GBP1,231
Paris-based M&A investment manager, Bernheim, Dreyfus, has unveiled research designed to uncover possible or potential bid targets during 2011. Among other names, the luxury jeweller Tiffany and software company, Adobe Systems, are seen as being particularly attractive.
Tiffany & Co is a jewellery and specialty retailer whose principal merchandise offering is fine jewellery and except its one Tiffany brand its portfolio also consists out of the Elsa Peretti, Frank Gehry, Paloma Picasso and Jean Schlumberger brands. Tiffany with sales of USD2,7 billion in 2009 is operating worldwide but with greatest presence in America and Japan totalling together 70% of sales.
Praesidian Capital, a provider of mezzanine capital for small and mid-sized companies, has successfully exited its investment in Venio.
Praesidian’s exit was facilitated by Venio’s acquisition of certain divisions of The Keane Organization and the new financing associated with the transaction.
Venio has been in the Praesidian portfolio since December 2008, when Praesidian invested approximately USD16.5 million to support a recapitalization conducted by Venio’s management and financial sponsor, DFW Capital Partners.
"Since our investment in Venio, the Company has remained a strong, stable leader in the shareholder services industry," says Jason D Drattell, Managing Partner at Praesidian Capital. "We are
WCI Consulting has been sold to TAKE Solutions, an Indian technology company with products backed by a strong domain expertise in Life Sciences and Supply Chain Management.
WCI Consulting is a leading Patient Safety and Compliance advisor to the Life Sciences industry. WCI founded pvnet and pvconnect, the industry’s primary fora for Patient Safety, which for 10 years have been shaping the industry’s approach to pharmacovigilance. The acquisition of WCI Consulting establishes a presence in Europe for TAKE, a market previously served remotely from TAKE’s established geographies.
This is the second business to be sold from WCI Group, in
Resolvyx Pharmaceuticals (Resolvyx) and Celtic Therapeutics Holdings (Celtic Therapeutics), a successor firm to Celtic Pharma, have entered into a final agreement under which Celtic Therapeutics has acquired and licensed worldwide rights related to Resolvyx’s RX-10045, a late-stage program for the treatment of dry eye syndrome and other ophthalmic conditions.
Terms of the deal include upfront consideration, near-term milestone payments, and funding for 100 per cent of future development costs. Resolvyx and Celtic Therapeutics will share proceeds from the future divestiture of RX-10045, including up-front payments, royalties or other revenues.
Under the terms of the agreement, Celtic Therapeutics will
Viola Private Equity has made a growth equity investment of USD7 million in Zend Technologies, a provider of software and services for developing, deploying and managing business-critical PHP applications on-premise and in the cloud.
Viola’s investment adds to the Company’s previous internal round raised from its existing investors, including Greylock Partners, Index Ventures, Azure Capital Partners, Intel Capital, SAP Ventures and others, which was announced in May 2010. All together the financing round amounts to USD16.5 million.
Zend achieved record revenue growth in 2010, signing up a high number of enterprise customers, including NYSE Euronext, General Electric and Cisco.
Artificial sausage case producer Kalle – backed in 2009 by European private equity firm Silverfleet Capital in EUR212.5 million deal – has acquired Jif-Pak Inc a US based producer of innovative meat nettings and casings in a transaction funded entirely by existing cash and a new debt facility.
"The acquisition of Jif-Pak broadens Kalle’s product range and significantly increases the scale of its operations’ in the USA," says Guido May (pictured), the partner at Silverfleet Capital responsible for Kalle. "Through buy and build Kalle is consolidating its position as the most innovative casing and netting manufacturer in the world. The
Despite an increase in average costs, a unanimous rise in business volumes and a robust increase in fee, commission & premium income meant that investment management profitability grew strongly for the sixth consecutive quarter, according to the latex CBI/PwC Financial Services Survey.
However, the survey, which asked participants how their business volumes fared in the three months to December, found that plans for capital spending in the year ahead have generally weakened; in particular, investment managers plan to authorise less spending on IT relative to the past year, for the first time since June 2009.
Optimism in securities trading rose
A GBP185 million business growth fund was launched in December to help small and medium-sized enterprises across the North West of England.
The North West Fund, formerly known as the Venture Capital and Loan Fund, is the largest public sector fund in the UK and will be used to develop and support growth-oriented enterprise in the region. The Evergreen Fund is expected to generate 14,000 new jobs and an estimated GBP700m Gross Value Added (GVA) for the region.
The North West Fund will provide debt, equity and quasi-equity to local SMEs, making investments of up to GBP2m into fast
Aureos Latin America Fund has acquired a 40% interest in Peru’s leading tour operator company, Condor Travel S.A.C. as part of a management buyout in which Sammy Niego, CEO of the company, has increased his participation to 51%.
This landmark transaction in the Peruvian market is the Aureos Latin America Fund’s tenth investment in Latin America and its second in Peru.
The Aureos Latin America Fund is an initiative of Aureos Capital, a private equity fund management company specializing in investing in small and medium sized businesses in emerging markets.
With 34 years of operations, Condor Travel is
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