The economy continues to be the number one concern of Washington’s venture capitalist community, according to the Washington Technology Industry Association’s Q3 2010 Venture Capital Outlook Survey. With the slowdown in the economic recovery, the majority of venture capitalists have predicted that the quality of new deal flow, the quality of deals expected to close, their confidence in the quantity of deal flow, and valuations for new early-stage deals will remain the same as Q2. Cautious optimism may be indicated by improvements in the predictions of moderate revenue growth and the absence of layoffs. For the first time since 2009

Wellington Financial, a privately-held specialty finance firm, has provided USD5.5m in debt financing for IXC (dba Telekenex) based in Seattle, Washington and San Francisco. The financing provides Telekenex with capital to continue its growth and penetration in the managed voice and data services market. Telekenex’s primary venture capital investors include Walden Venture Capital, Altos Ventures and Industry Ventures, all of northern California. "There is no doubt that Telekenex has become a formidable force in the managed services industry. Their enhanced voice/data solutions improve employee productivity and achieve a positive customer experience," says Eric Speer, vice president at Wellington Financial USA’s

After many months of gloomy M&A statistics, deal making activity is finally looking up again with a 25 per cent increase in terms of value reported for the first half of the year compared to the same time period last year. The report by mergermarket further reveals that the CEE region – excluding Russia – is set to become the new hot spot for M&A activity, closely followed by the UK and Ireland. Activity in the latter region is set to be spurred on particularly by distressed M&A as banks which have propped up mid-market businesses throughout the crisis find

The Egyptian Refining Company, a partnership between Citadel Capital, its co-investors and the state-owned Egyptian General Petroleum, has signed a debt package of USD2.6bn to finance construction of its USD3.7bn second-stage oil refinery in the Greater Cairo Area. The refinery will produce over four million tons of refined products per annum when completed, including 2.3 million tons of Euro V diesel, the cleanest fuel of its type in the world. “We are delighted to announce the debt package for what we believe stands as one of the largest project finance deals ever assembled in Africa,” says Citadel Capital managing director

Axa Private Equity has acquired a 51.8 per cent share in the Rollon Group, a linear motion manufacturer based in Vimercate, northern Italy.   Rollon provides linear guides and actuators used in machine design applications for railways and other industries, including plant assembly, packaging design, transportation, manufacturing and medical device development. Axa Private Equity aims to help Rollon develop its business internationally. Rollon’s management team has invested alongside Axa Private Equity in the transaction, acquiring a stake of around five per cent, and Consilium SGR, an Italian independent private equity player, has acquired a minority stake in the company through

LDC-backed Green Sky Energy, a UK-based energy management businesses, has boosted its international capabilities by acquiring two businesses from the DWEC Group. DWEC and DWEC Europe operate in the building energy management systems arena, predominantly in the South of England and Channel Islands.  Established in the early 1990s, DWEC serves a largely blue-chip client base and has carried out installations in a number of prestigious sites including Buckingham Palace, the Royal Household buildings, Natural History Museum, National Gallery and the Royal Albert Hall   DWEC Europe was formed in 2002 and has customers in niche sectors such as pharmaceuticals, data

Avere Systems, a provider of storage solutions for businesses, has received an additional USD17m in funding, bringing total investment in the company to USD32m. Led by Tenaya Capital, the series B funding round also includes original investors Menlo Ventures and Norwest Venture Partners. In the past few months, Avere has closed major deals with companies like Sony Pictures Imageworks and GX Technology. Brian Paul, managing director of Tenaya Capital, joins the Avere Systems board. Paul says: "Avere has proven to be a company that simply cannot be ignored. We have been watching Avere closely since they entered the market and

Wellington Financial, a privately-held specialty finance firm, has provided a USD3.5m debt financing commitment to Pivot of New Jersey, a provider of liquidity management and collaboration software to the financial markets.   Pivot’s venture capital investors include Boldcap Venture Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson Gotham Ventures, Epic Ventures, Eze Castle Integration, Hudson Ventures, and Softbank Capital. "Thousands of trading professionals use Pivot’s suite of tools to streamline communications, collaboration and liquidity management. The resulting increased speed in locating and acting on trading opportunities serves to drive profitability," says Craig Netterfield, senior vice president at Wellington Financial. "Pivot is our fourth US

Weil, Gotshal & Manges has acted for Advent International and Bain Capital on their acquisition of a 80.01 per cent stake in the global merchant services arm of the Royal Bank of Scotland, with an enterprise value of up to GBP2.025bn. The deal is subject to relevant regulatory approvals and is due to complete in the fourth quarter of 2010. The acquisition by the private equity consortium includes the WorldPay and the Streamline cards operations. WorldPay provides credit-card payment processing services to clients including small- and medium-sized businesses and has operations in more than 40 countries. RBS will hold a