MerchantBridge, a direct investment and private equity company, has signed and agreed terms to invest in Monaco Luxury Hotels & Resorts in a USD20m transaction. This is the second investment by MerchantBridge this year, following its acquisition of the 15-year lease of the Kerbala Cement Plant in conjunction with Lafarge.  MerchantBridge has completed nine private equity transactions in North America, Europe and the Middle East over the past five years. Monaco Luxury Hotels was founded in 2006 by the Torriani family as a hotel management company with a core emphasis on the niche market of luxury hotels in the four

Dahlman Rose, an investment bank specialising in natural resources, transportation and other industries in the global supply chain, has, subject to regulatory approval, entered into a definitive agreement to receive a USD40m minority investment from private equity firm Lovell Minnick Partners.  Dahlman Rose plans to use the proceeds for further expansion of its investment banking, research and institutional sales and trading platforms. Lovell Minnick will finance the investment from the Lovell Minnick Equity Partners III fund. As part of the agreement, the firm will appoint two representatives to Dahlman Rose’s board of managers.  Lovell Minnick managing director Spencer Hoffman (pictured)

Hudson Ferry Capital, a New York-based private equity firm, has received its license from the Small Business Administration to operate Hudson Ferry Capital II as a small business investment company. Hudson Ferry Capital II is now a USD100m small business investment company focused on making buy-in investments in established, family-owned US businesses. Hudson Ferry defines "buy-ins" as control investments with existing managers that retain substantial ownership positions. This creates a partnership with a common goal to transform a small or regional business into a large, integrated enterprise. "The availability of capital for small to mid-sized companies has significantly declined as

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