Katalyst Partners has been launched as a boutique advisory firm by Ravi Anand and Frank Ennis, together with corporate partners Kinetic Partners and Dexion Capital. The firm provides corporate finance and strategic advice to the investment management industry, encompassing both traditional and alternative asset managers, wealth managers, closed end investment companies and service providers. Katalyst Partners identifies, executes and provides advice on business, corporate or product development initiatives.    Anand, previously head of corporate finance and co-head of alternatives at New Star Asset Management, and Ennis, former partner at PwC, bring together more than 45 years’ experience in financial services. 

TA Associates, a growth private equity firm, has signed a definitive agreement to invest in Amann Girrbach, a developer, manufacturer and marketer of equipment and consumables for dental reconstruction. Alpine Equity, formerly Hypo Equity, will sell its stake in Amann Girrbach in this transaction. Additionally, current owners of Amann Girrbach will sell a portion of their stake. Terms of the investment were not disclosed. Amann Girrbach, with approximately 220 employees, develops precision systems and consumables for dental laboratories and exports them to over 70 countries. Research and manufacturing facilities are located in Koblach, Austria, with sales and distribution based in

FRSGlobal has joined Wolters Kluwer Financial Services, a regulatory compliance and risk management business. The combination of these two businesses will enable FRSGlobal to offer compliance and risk solutions that cover operational risk, regulatory compliance and financial risk and reporting. Wolters Kluwer Financial Services, which is part of a USD4.8bn information services company, is solely focused on the compliance and risk management challenges of financial services organisations. There will not be any changes to FRSGlobal’s current processes, systems or communication.

Octopus Investments has made an investment of GBP275,000 into TouchType, a developer of text prediction technology designed to boost the accuracy, fluency and speed of text entry on mobile and computing devices.   The deal with TouchType represents the 19th investment Octopus has concluded this year and is one of Octopus’ first seed investments.   TouchType’s core product is the Fluency Prediction Engine, which can boost user writing efficiency by up to 50 per cent compared to a standard Qwerty keyboard. By using natural language processing techniques, Fluency is able to predict what a user intends to write. TouchType began

CanopyHR Solutions, an Orange County-based payroll and human resources company, has received financial investment from Claritas Capital Fund III. “We like efficient business models,” says Theresa Sexton, vice president at Claritas. “We think CanopyHR is a compelling investment opportunity for our firm and for our investors. They have significant experience, and they’re innovative entrepreneurs with appropriate equity and the promise of smart, healthy growth.” Claritas focuses on development stage investing in companies with strong potential, and then uses its network of resources to add value. CanopyHR caught the investor’s attention with its solid management team and attractive financial structure, along

Private equity-backed deals announced in Q3 2010 have an aggregate value of USD66.7bn, an increase of nearly one-third on the previous quarter. Preqin’s quarterly deal flow data shows a total of 515 private equity buyout deals announced in Q3 2010, with an aggregate value of USD66.7bn. This represents a 29 per cent increase in the aggregate value from Q2 2010, when 498 deals were announced with an aggregate value of USD51.9bn, and a 147 per cent increase on the 396 deals valued at USD27bn reported in Q1 2010. Deal flow in Q3 2010 represents the strongest quarter for buyout deals

Charterhouse Group, a New York-based private equity firm, has sold its portfolio company Chamberlin Edmonds to a subsidiary of Emdeon for USD260m in cash. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Chamberlin Edmonds is a provider of government programme eligibility and enrollment services to over 200 acute care facilities in 30 states. Emdeon is a provider of healthcare revenue and payment cycle management solutions. The transaction has been financed through the use of unrestricted cash and borrowings under an amendment to Emdeon’s existing credit facility that was established simultaneously with the closing of the transaction. In connection with the credit facility amendment, Emdeon

KPS Capital Partners’ portfolio company HHI Group has completed its second recapitalisation in 2010. The proceeds of the recapitalisation – funded by a combination of a USD30m upsizing of the company’s term loan, cash on hand and the company’s asset-based revolving credit facility – were used to fund a USD50m cash distribution to stockholders. Following the second recapitalisation, HHI remains conservatively capitalised and has the continued support of KPS, its majority stockholder. KPS and minority stockholders, including MC Capital, a subsidiary of Mitsubishi, and HHI management, continue to own 100 per cent of HHI’s common stock. HHI completed a USD300m

Brynwood Partners, a lower middle market private equity firm, has completed the final close of its latest fund, Brynwood Partners VI, with USD305m of committed capital. "We are both pleased and proud to announce the final close of Brynwood VI at USD305m, the largest fund in our 26 year history," says Hendrik J. Hartong III, senior managing partner. "We are grateful for the support from all of our limited partners and happy to welcome ten new limited partners into our latest fund. We believe that our track record and operationally-focused investment strategy in the lower middle market continues to be

Private equity firms invested about USD2,047m across 88 deals in India during the quarter ended September 2010, according to a study by Venture Intelligence. The latest numbers take the total PE investments in 2010 to USD6,566m (across 231 deals) more than twice the USD2,502m invested (across 179 deals) during the same period in 2009. The amount invested in Q3 was little over twice that during the same period last year, which witnessed USD976m being invested across 65 deals, but lower compared to the immediate previous quarter USD2,364m across 71 deals. “For the first time since Q1’09, the amount invested by