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Qatar-based investment bank QInvest has acquired a 40.8 per cent stake in Intercat Hospitality and Butlers Dry Cleaning and Laundry Services, a UAE outsourced business services company.
The group, established in 1992, is comprised of Intercat, Butlers and restaurant concepts Mashawi and Toast.
Intercat specialises in the institutional catering market with clients in the hospitality, corporate, education, and contracting sectors.
Butlers is in the institutional dry cleaning and laundry market serving customers primarily in the hospitality sector.
The investment will enable the company to continue to grow its business in the UAE and expand into other GCC markets.
George Farha,
Law firm CMS Cameron McKenna has expanded its private equity capacity by hiring a seven-strong private equity/corporate team, including three partners.
The team comprises key members of the “flying squad” that handled CEE/emerging market cross-border private equity backed M&A transactions in the region for Linklaters until 2007.
The team is led by Ted Cominos, who joins CMS as international head of private equity for CMS Cameron McKenna.
Cominos ranks among the few City lawyers to have been a partner in a magic circle law firm and a partner/investment principal in a private equity fund.
After leaving Linklaters, Cominos became a
Private equity investment companies have enjoyed strong performance over the past year, according to the Association of Investment Companies.
Over the last year the average private equity company is up 53 per cent, but it is down 24 per cent over the last five years.
The AIC has spoken to private equity investment company managers to gauge their views on the outlook for the private equity investment company sector.
Despite recognising that there are still challenging times ahead, the managers believe that 2010 will be a good year for the sector.
Brian Scouler, manager of Dunedin Enterprise, says: “After difficult
Lending Club, a peer lending network, has closed a USD24.5m investment round led by Foundation Capital.
Foundation Capital was joined by existing investors including Morgenthaler Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners and Canaan Partners.
"Lending Club is ideally positioned to capture a significant share of the US banking and investment market over the next five to ten years," says Charles Moldow (pictured), general partner at Foundation Capital. "The Lending Club team has built a stellar track record in a challenging environment and now has the data to show that the economic model works and delivers tremendous value to both borrowers and investors."
Venture capital firm Accel Partners has hired Adam Valkin in its London office.
Valkin joins Accel Partners from Endemol Group, a provider of entertainment programming and the world’s largest independent production company, where he was the global head of digital media and new business.
Prior to that he had nine years of investment experience with Arts Alliance Advisors, where he invested in and managed portfolio companies in Europe and Israel.
Valkin was formerly a co-founder and interim chief executive of LoveFilm.
He joins the current team of seven investment professionals in the London office.
“Adam is immensely talented,
Jafco Ventures, a technology venture capital firm, has received an additional USD100m of capital to kick-off its latest fund and has named Paul Sallaberry as its newest venture partner.
This addition to the team comes on the heels of Nick Sturiale and Jeb Miller joining Jafco early last year as general partners.
Joe Horowitz (pictured), managing general partner of Jafco Ventures, says the firm has been investing at a brisk pace and recently closed USD100m of fresh capital from Jafco Co., its limited partner, to kick-off investing in its newest fund, JTP IV.
Jafco Ventures has been an active investor
Vision Opportunity China Fund, a closed-ended fund traded on AIM that seeks investments in SMEs with operations principally within Greater China, has launched a set of initiatives that are designed to further improve the liquidity in the trading and rating of VOC’s shares and enhance shareholder value.
It is introducing a distribution policy which aims to return to shareholders an amount equivalent to between 20 per cent and 50 per cent of the company’s relevant net realisation proceeds achieved in each financial year.
It is also implementing a share buy-back policy and moving the company from AIM up to the
I2BF, the clean technology asset management group, is raising a USD100m global renewable energy and cleantech focused venture capital fund.
This comes after the successful raising of its first venture fund, I2BF Holdings One, which currently holds close to USD75m.
I2BF’s Venture Fund II will invest in a diversified portfolio of early stage companies developing and commercialising cutting-edge technologies in the renewable energy industry.
This includes cleantech and renewable power companies in the solar, wind, biofuels, energy efficiency and energy storage sectors, primarily targeting the developed markets of Europe and US, but will also be focused on markets such as
Private equity firm The Carlyle Group has closed its Carlyle Asia Partners III fund at USD2.55bn, which is more than 40 per cent larger than its predecessor fund, Carlyle Asia Partners II.
Carlyle Asia Partners III is the third ex-Japan Asia Pacific private equity fund advised by the Carlyle Asia Partners team, bringing the aggregate committed capital to more than USD5bn.
The new fund has attracted commitments from large institutional investors from around the world, including the US, Europe, Middle East and Asia.
Carlyle established its Asian private equity operation in 1999, and the Carlyle Asia Partners group alone has
Private investment firm Sun Capital Partners says one of its affiliated portfolio companies, Elan Nutrition, has been purchased by ConAgra Foods.
Headquartered in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Elan Nutrition is a contract developer and manufacturer of nutritional bars serving the health and wellness, meal replacement, sports nutrition, energy bar, and nutraceuticals markets.
Elan Nutrition operates a 230,000 square foot facility in Grand Rapids.
Matthew Garff, managing director at Sun Capital, says: "We are very pleased with Elan Nutrition’s growth trajectory since acquiring the business in May 2003, and greatly enjoyed working with its capable management team to develop the company into
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