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UK mid-market private equity firm Phoenix Equity Partners has reached agreement for the sale of Acorn Care and Education to Teachers’ Private Capital, the private investment department of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.
The consideration on the transaction is not being disclosed.
Acorn provides education and care for vulnerable children and young people in England. It operates ten schools for children with special educational needs and an independent fostering agency under the Fostering Solutions brand, which recruits, trains and supports foster carers, to whom local authorities refer and place children.
Phoenix invested in Acorn in March 2005, alongside
Hiroshi Yoh, CIO at Tokio Marine Asset Management (London), the Japanese and Asian equities specialist, reveals his outlook for Asia ex-Japan equities in 2010.
Our prediction that the global economy would begin its recovery during H2 2009 has proved to be accurate – China’s economy bottomed during the first quarter of 2009, followed by the manufacturing centres of Taiwan and Korea and financial centres of Hong Kong and Singapore during the second quarter while the US registered positive quarterly GDP growth in the third quarter.
After contracting an estimated 1% in 2009, the global GDP is now expected to
European mid-market specialist BLM Partners has appointed Jeffrey Iverson as general counsel and a principal.
In addition to his responsibility for all legal and compliance matters, Iverson will work closely with the founding partners to continue to develop BLM’s investment offering and deliver its strategy.
Iverson joins BLM from Nomura International, where he was an executive director in the M&A advisory and merchant banking legal department. In that role, he advised on the integration of certain businesses acquired from Lehman Brothers as well as providing legal and regulatory advice to the European and Middle East M&A and merchant banking groups.
Mid Europa Partners, a private equity firm focused on buyouts in Central Europe, has promoted Nikolaus Bethlen and Stefan Tzvetkov to director level.
Pawel Padusinski (pictured) and Cezary Pietrasik have been promoted to the associate director level, and Tomasz Blicharski and Vladislav Ratajac to senior associate.
Thierry Baudon, Mid Europa’s managing partner, says: “I am delighted to announce the 2010 promotions within the Mid Europa team. The new level of responsibility accorded to the team members recognises their considerable contributions to the Partnership to date and we look forward to their continued commitment to the growth and success of Mid
Citadel Capital, Africa’s largest private equity firm, plans to invest a further USD200m to USD400m over the coming two years in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.
The announcement was made by Ahmed Heikal, Citadel Capital’s chairman and founder, and comes in the wake of the firm’s investments in Sudan.
To date, Citadel Capital’s Sudanese investments cover sectors including transportation and logistics, financial services, cement, mining, agriculture, and oil and gas.
“By the end of 2010, we will have invested more than USD900m in that nation,” Heikal says.
“Citadel Capital is uniquely positioned to apply the industry development model we honed
KupiVIP.ru, a Russian online shopping club, has raised USD20m in funding led by venture capital firm Accel Partners.
Accel Partners was joined by existing investors Mangrove Capital Partners, Arlan, Direct Group and business angel, Oliver Jung.
Sonali De Rycker (pictured) from Accel Partners will join KupiVIP.ru’s board as part of Accel’s investment.
KupiVIP.ru is Russia’s largest online flash sales business and had more than one million members joining in 2009. The company sells discounted fashion goods from over 500 active brands on its online property.
KupiVIP.ru launched in 2008 with an initial USD11m investment.
Founder and chief executive
Intuit has completed the sale of Intuit Real Estate Solutions to Vista Equity Partners, a private equity firm focused on investments in software and technology-enabled businesses.
The transaction, announced on 2 December 2009, is valued at approximately USD128m.
Intuit Real Estate Solutions, based in Highland Hills, Ohio, was part of Intuit’s global business division and a provider of software and services to companies in the real estate management and investment industry.
With the close of the transaction, Intuit will treat Intuit Real Estate Solutions as a discontinued operation.
Intuit Real Estate Solutions revenue totalled approximately USD74m in fiscal year 2009
HarbourVest Private Equity’s net asset value per share was USD8.55 at 31 December 2009, representing a 1.8 per cent increase from the 30 November 2009 estimated NAV per share of USD8.40.
This change was driven primarily by a positive valuation adjustment (approximately USD0.26 per share) taken by the HarbourVest funds to reflect the investment manager’s preliminary estimate of year-end 2009 valuation increases.
This was partially offset by foreign currency movements (USD0.09 decrease in NAV per share) and ongoing operating expenses (USD0.02 per share).
During December, the euro and pound sterling depreciated 4.6 per cent and 1.6 per cent, respectively, against
Private equity firm Guardian Capital Partners has completed the final closing of Guardian Capital Partners Fund I with slightly more than USD50m in aggregate capital commitments.
The fund’s principal focus is to lead the acquisition of controlling interests in lower middle market manufacturing and service businesses in the US.
“We are extremely pleased to have a final close on Guardian Capital Partners Fund I,” says Peter Haabestad (pictured), managing partner of Guardian Capital Partners.
“The lower middle market is underserved and provides unique opportunities to build more efficient, higher performing and safer businesses. By implementing an exceptional level of discipline,
Risk management solution provider Portfolio Science has extended the reach of its RiskAPI distributed risk engine through an agreement to integrate the product into FixQ, an enterprise investment management system from specialist software provider PortfolioShop.
RiskAPI uses an application programming interface that allows users to access exposure calculations through standard operating environments such as the Excel spreadsheet application, offering risk management capabilities to a broad spectrum of investment industry players, not just the largest and best-capitalised institutions.
APIs normally allow users to customise software by developing code that can access and manipulate the software’s features, says Portfolio Science president Ittai
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