RedPrairie Holding, a productivity solutions provider, has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by a fund affiliated with New Mountain Capital, a private equity firm. RedPrairie says the acquisition will enable it to accelerate its growth rate while enhancing its commitment to customer success. "Our objective is to be the leading provider of productivity solutions for manufacturers, distributors and retailers," says Mike Mayoras (pictured), RedPrairie chief executive. "Our relationship with New Mountain Capital will allow us to reach our strategic goals quickly, efficiently and with certainty. We believe there are significant opportunities to provide more value to our

Nearly half of venture capital providers say lending will be more restrictive in the next 12 months, according to a study by Pepperdine University’s Graziadio School of Business and Management. At the same time, 70.5 per cent agree that demand for venture capital will grow. Findings on the venture capital industry also shows that investing in clean tech companies is now more popular than software and medical devices. VCs report investing the largest concentration of money in clean tech (14.5 per cent) followed by software (13.5 per cent), medical devices (12.2 per cent) and biotech (9.8 per cent). More than

Maven Capital Partners as joint manager of the Capital for Enterprise Fund has made a GBP1.5m investment in PrismTech Group, a provider of high-performance communications software. The GBP75m Capital for Enterprise Fund is a government backed initiative launched earlier this year to help small and medium size enterprises in the UK gain access to the financial support required to bridge the funding gap caused by the credit crisis. In April 2009, it was announced that GBP60m from the fund would be allocated to two separate GBP30m funds, one of which is managed by Maven. A further GBP15m is being managed

Highland Gold Mining has acquired a license for exploration and mining rights for the Blagodatnoye prospect in the Khabarovsk region of Russia.  Blagodatnoye has a reported prognostic resource of five tonnes (161,000 oz) of gold. The acquisition was made in an open auction on 19 February in Khabarovsk for a bid price of RUB3.25m (USD107,794). Preliminary evaluation of data from previous exploration work revealed that the property has good potential to increase the mineral resource. The Blagodatnoye prospect features stockwork-type gold mineralisation with average gold grades in the range of 1.5 g/t – 2 g/t. A multi-disciplinary exploration programme will

Citadel Capital, a private equity firm in Africa and the Middle East, has acquired a 49 per cent stake in Sheltam Railways, the largest single shareholder and lead investor in Rift Valley Railways of Kenya and Uganda. Sheltam owns 35 per cent of Rift Valley Railways, which has a 25 year concession to operate a century-old rail line with some 2,000 kilometres of track linking the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa in Kenya with the interiors of both Kenya and Uganda, including the capital city of Kampla. The transaction gives Citadel Capital an effective ownership of 17.5 per cent of

Low Carbon Accelerator’s consolidated net asset value was GBP43.28m or 50.3 pence per ordinary share at 30 November 2009, down 1.9 per cent on the pro forma 30 November 2008 NAV of 51.3 pence per ordinary share. The first half of the year presented difficult economic conditions and the group made a loss of GBP6.2m as it took a disciplined approach to resource allocation, supporting only the strongest companies in the existing portfolio. The effectiveness of this strategy has been shown in the financial performance during the second half of the year which has delivered two consecutive quarters of NAV

A consortium of investors has sold their stakes in BitBand Technologies, an Israel-based provider of cross platform video content delivery network solutions, to Motorola. The consortium includes Sequoia Capital Israel, The Challenge Fund – Etgar LP (Challenge Fund I), Aviv Venture Capital, Apax Partners, Portview Communications Partners and Ascend Technology Ventures. Following the acquisition, BitBand will be integrated into Motorola’s home and networks mobility business. The acquisition of BitBand will complement Motorola’s existing on demand product line which includes the Adaptive Media Management framework for content management and high-performance streaming servers for centralised and edge-based on demand networks. With the

Ernst & Young was the most active transaction adviser for private equity and M&A deals combined in 2009, according to the latest league tables from Venture Intelligence. For private equity deals, Ernst & Young was tied with boutique investment banks Mape and o3 Capital for the first position with five deals each. On the M&A front, Ernst & Young topped with seven deals and was followed by Mape (six deals) and Kotak and Avendus Capital with five deals each. Among legal advisers for private equity transactions, ALMT with 21 transactions to its credit for the year was followed by AZB