Sovereign Capital, a UK private equity firm, has acquired three funeral directors, John Stuart Funeral Services, CS Bowyer and KY Green, for its portfolio company, Laurel, a Wolverhampton-based funeral group which now comprises 50 sites. John Stuart and CS Bowyer, both based in Wiltshire, have over 150 years of trading history between them whilst KY Green, based in Aylesbury, can trace its origins back over 200 years. The group intends to build on the individual heritage of these previously family owned businesses through broadening the range of services available to the bereaved. Kevin Whittle (pictured), partner at Sovereign Capital, says:

The Amplio Group, an operator and investor in the renewable energy and environmental sectors, has completed and connected two plants of 1MW each and expects to connect by the end of the month four additional plants of 1MW. Amplio’s investment will be approximately EUR13m for a total of 6MW of solar plants in the provinces of Foggia and Lecce in the region of Puglia in southern Italy. This brings Amplio’s total investment in solar in the last 12 months to approximately EUR33m, financed in part with equity and vendor finance in order to accelerate construction of the solar plants. Amplio

Gresham Private Equity, a UK mid market private equity specialist, has signed a deal to dispose of its investment in Minivator Group through the sale of the business to Handicare Group, a health company in Europe. The deal, which is subject to regulatory approval, will yield Gresham a return on investment of 3.4 times. Based in the Midlands, Minivator is a manufacturer of stairlifts selling to over 35 countries. Since the management buy-out in August 2004, the management team has invested heavily in the company’s research and development and turnover has doubled. Over the past four years employee numbers have

In most markets outside the US the fourth quarter of 2009 was the best quarter of the year for venture capital investment, but it did little to boost the year’s annual totals. In the fourth quarter, venture capitalists invested USD2.5bn in 396 deals in Europe, Canada, Israel, China and India, a 24 per cent drop from the USD3.3bn invested in 472 deals during same period last year, according to data from Dow Jones VentureSource. Throughout 2009, investors put USD8.2bn to work in 1,391 deals outside the US, a 47 per cent drop from the USD15.5bn invested in 1,932 deals in

Lightyear Capital, a New York-based private equity firm, has completed its acquisition of Financial Network Investment, based in El Segundo, California, Multi-Financial Securities, based in Denver, Colorado, and PrimeVest Financial Services, based in St. Cloud, Minnesota, via an affiliate of Lightyear Fund II. The acquisition includes the holding company and back-office shared services supporting the broker dealers, which collectively did business as ING Advisors Network. Lightyear previously announced a definitive agreement to acquire these broker dealers on 3 November 2009. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. The acquired broker-dealers will be re-branded with the new corporate name, Cetera Financial

The Luxembourg Private Equity and Venture Capital Association has been created to represent and promote the interests of private equity and venture capital players based in Luxembourg. The non-profit organisation also intends to support initiatives to enhance the competitiveness and efficiency of the Luxembourg economic, legal, regulatory and operational framework as an international hub for carrying out private equity and venture capital business. It will work with the European Venture Capital and Private Equity Association and other relevant international industry bodies to represent the interests of the members of the LPEA and the industry as well as Luxembourg as a

With the end of tax year approaching, commentators are predicting a bumper year for VCTs in light of the forthcoming increase in the top rate of income tax, as well as the reduction in pensions tax relief for higher earners.  The Association of Investment Companies has collated the views of advisers and VCT commentators to gauge their views on what risk/reward issues investors need to consider when building a balanced VCT portfolio, as well as their views on how a VCT portfolio might complement a pension portfolio.  Martin Churchill, editor, Tax Efficient Review, says: “There is a resurgence of interest