Infinity Venture Capital Fund, an Israel-based venture capital fund, has entered into an agreement to sell its stake in Teledata Networks, a Netherlands-based provider of access network solutions and products for telecom service providers, to Enablence Technologies. Elron Electronic Industries and Kardan Israel are also selling their stake in Teledata Networks. Paradigm Capital is acting as financial adviser to Enablence Technologies on the transaction.

Appleby, a provider of offshore legal, fiduciary and administration services, is opening its office in Guernsey today. The group will now have 81 partners, 215 lawyers and over 800 staff worldwide. The new office will practise Guernsey law with a focus on corporate and commercial law, private client and trust matters, litigation, insolvency and restructuring and, following approval by the Guernsey Financial Services Commission, will offer a range of fiduciary services. Appleby Guernsey will initially comprise corporate and commercial group partners Barney Lee and Helen Crossley, litigation partner Jeremy Le Tissier and private client and trust partner Gavin Ferguson, each

A subsidiary of Citigroup has sold 16.4 million shares of Primerica common stock to private equity funds managed by Warburg Pincus for USD230m. The transaction included warrants that will allow the Warburg Pincus funds to acquire approximately 4.1 million additional shares of Primerica common stock over a period of seven years at an exercise price of USD18 per share. Affiliates of Citigroup now own less than 40 per cent of Primerica’s outstanding common stock. Michael E Martin, a managing director of Warburg Pincus who co-heads its financial services group, and Daniel Zilberman, another managing director of Warburg Pincus, have been

The US venture financing industry raised USD4.7bn for 597 deals in the first quarter of 2010, up 12 per cent from the same period last year, according to Dow Jones VentureSource. The median deal size was USD4.5m in the first quarter of 2010, down from the USD5m seen in the same period last year. The IT industry claimed the largest slice of the capital in quarter one but just one-third of the total investment, continuing a downward trend that started in 2005 which is a result of changes to business models. Prior to 2005, IT regularly claimed 50 per cent or

The Riverstone/Carlyle Global Energy and Power Funds, a group of energy-focused private equity funds managed by Riverstone Holdings, will make an investment in Three Rivers Operating Company, a private upstream oil and gas company based in Austin, Texas. Separately, Three Rivers will acquire certain assets of Chesapeake Energy Corporation. The assets are primarily located in the Permian Basin of West Texas and Southeast New Mexico. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Three Rivers will concentrate its efforts in the Permian Basin and will be managed by chief executive Michael Wichterich, as well as Gabe Ellisor, Jim Keisling and Barry

Austin-based Spredfast, an enterprise-class social media management system, has received USD1.6m in series A funding from Austin Ventures.   This initial round of funding will help accelerate Spredfast’s business development and increase brand awareness in the social media management market. “After garnering quite a bit of buzz in 2010, culminating at SXSW, we are excited to partner with Spredfast and assist in further accelerating their business,” says Mike Dodd, venture partner at Austin Ventures. “We believe social media is the next big channel for online marketers to acquire customers, following in the footsteps of display, search, and SEO. This new

Transaction volume in the global asset management industry in the first quarter of 2010 declined significantly from 2009, but according to Jefferies’ financial institutions group M&A involving managers of alternative strategies and independent firms is on the rise. A record level of over 50 per cent of Q1 2010 global asset management transactions involved acquisitions of alternative managers. In Q1 2009, transactions involving alternative managers represented approximately 25 per cent of the total deal volume, owing to concerns stemming from the turbulent capital markets at the end of 2008 and early part of 2009. Prominent examples of alternative transactions in

Private equity investments in India in quarter one 2010 climbed to the highest level in six quarters as a rally in equities helped stoke a revival in appetite of investors, according to a report by Arc Financial Services. The quarter saw 69 deals bringing in USD2.2bn. The key trend on the private equity investments front during Q1 was the re-emergence of appetite for large ticket deals. The latest quarter witnessed as many as six investments over USD100m, the highest since quarter three 2008. The telecom, media and technology sectors continued to dominate in Q1, witnessing 25 per cent of the