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Private equity firm CCMP Capital Advisors has acquired a controlling interest in Francesca’s Collections, a women’s fashion retailer.
The company’s founders will continue to be involved in its management.
Headquartered in Houston, Francesca’s Collections has more than 160 boutique locations in 33 states. It offers jewellery, handbags, gifts, accessories and apparel.
Greg Brenneman, chairman of CCMP Capital, says: “We are impressed by Francesca’s ability to grow its store base rapidly while maintaining its unique business model, culture and customer shopping experience. The company delivers industry-leading, store-level economics in terms of same store sales increases, cash on cash returns, sales per
Taylor Wessing has advised online motor insurance provider esure on its management buyout from Lloyds Banking Group, funded by private equity firm Penta Capital.
The deal, valued in excess of GBP185m, comes 15 months after the part nationalised bank assumed a 70 per cent stake in the insurance provider following its takeover of HBOS in 2008.
Under the terms of the deal, Lloyds’ 70 per cent stake in esure has been acquired by a new investment vehicle owned by insurance entrepreneur Peter Wood, esure staff and Penta Capital.
esure was jointly founded by Wood and Halifax in 2000. It is
ETF Venture Funds, an early stage venture capital firm that invests companies in the healthcare, mobile, media and entertainment, greentech and business 2.0 industries, has changed its name to SeventySix Capital.
The new name is the final component of a multi-stage re-branding effort.
Founded in 1999, SeventySix Capital’s portfolio companies have created new industries, generating over USD5bn in revenues and supporting more than 6,000 jobs.
Successful investments include SeamlessWeb, which was acquired by Aramark; Take Care Health Systems, which was acquired by Walgreens; and Nutrisystem, whose stock price grew from less than USD1 to over USD70 over a five year
Citigroup has appointed Sanjiv Sawhney as global head of fund services for Citi’s securities and fund services business.
In this new position, Sawhney will provide leadership for Citi’s hedge fund, private equity and mutual fund administration businesses globally within Citi’s suite of investor services solutions.
Sawhney will report to Neeraj Sahai, global head of Citi’s securities and fund services, and joins from JP Morgan.
Sahai says: "We are very pleased that Sanjiv is rejoining Citi in this key leadership role. His extensive industry expertise and global experience will be instrumental as our fund clients cross borders and jurisdictions to explore
Healthcare company Baxter International has agreed to acquire all the outstanding equity of ApaTech, a private equity-backed UK-based orthobiologic products company, for total consideration of up to USD330m.
As a result of the acquisition, Baxter will acquire Actifuse, a silicate substituted calcium phosphate synthetic bone graft material which is currently marketed in the US, EU and other select markets around the world, as well as manufacturing and R&D facilities located in the UK, US and Germany.
“This is a significant step in enhancing Baxter’s position in the rapidly growing orthobiologics space, and our leadership in regenerative medicine,” says Ron Lloyd,
Aladdin Credit Partners (ACP), a joint equity venture formed by co-founders Luke Gosselin and Victor Russo, and Aladdin Capital Holdings, has announced the closing of its USD573m initial credit opportunites funds, Aladdin Credit Partners I LP and Aladdin Credit Offshire Fund I LP.
Both ACP funds are focused on investing in restructuring-related opportunites including rescue financing, debtor-in-possession financing, and plan confirmation financing.
“In what proved to be one of the more challenging fund-raising environments over the past decade, we are pleased to have raised what we believe to be one of the largest global pools of capital in 2009,”
The latest results of the Deal Drivers Russia survey, published by CMS in cooperation with mergermarket, reveal that optimism is returning to the M&A industry, albeit slowly.
Only one per cent of respondents thought that M&A activity will decrease during 2010, as against the views of 33 per cent at the end of 2009.
Deal makers in Russia are overwhelmingly optimistic about the future of Russian M&A with 81 per cent of those surveyed feeling positive about the prospects of the Russian economy in 2010 compared to 2009. An additional six per cent even claim to feel very positive about
US Logistics, a wholly owned subsidiary of private equity consolidator Ranger International Services Group, has appointed Major General (US Army, retired) Chuck Swannack as its chief operating officer.
US Logistics is a government outsourcing contractor specialising in tactical vehicle overhauls and repairs, technical staffing, base logistics, and aircraft technical services.
General Swannack retired from the US Army in 2005 after 33 years of service, culminating as the Commander of the fabled 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
As the new chief operating officer of US Logistics, Swannack will help guide the firm’s growth with vigilance on quality, safety,
YA Global Master SPV, a fund managed by US-based investment manager Yorkville Advisors, has formed a standby equity distribution agreement with NYSE-listed Ashford Hospitality Trust.
The agreement enables Ashford to sell up to USD50m of its common stock in tranches to YA Global over a 36 month term.
At Ashford’s discretion, the commitment amount could be increased by USD15m to USD65m within the first year of the agreement.
As set forth in the agreement, each tranche is limited in size and the newly issued shares are priced pursuant to a formula based off the current market price of Ashford.
The
Neuberger Berman has named William A. Arnold chief financial officer, effective in early March.
Arnold, who has 24 years of corporate finance experience in asset management and financial services, comes to Neuberger Berman from Citigroup.
Arnold will report to George Walker, chairman and chief executive officer.
During the firm’s transition to independence, the finance function had been overseen by Andrew Komaroff, chief operating officer.
“I am thrilled to have a finance executive of Bill’s calibre aboard to lead this important area for our independent firm,” says Walker. “We have an exceptionally strong team in place as we build on our
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