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Kohlberg Kravis Roberts has appointed Lee Stern, previously a managing director at GSO Capital Partners, as a director of the firm responsible for originating and structuring mezzanine investments.
Based in New York, Stern joins KKR Asset Management.
Henry R. Kravis and George R. Roberts (pictured), co-founders of KKR, said: “With more than two decades of experience in mezzanine finance, private equity and investment banking, Lee is an excellent addition to our global mezzanine efforts. As we expand our strategy to invest across the capital structure – from senior debt to equity – his expertise will be extremely valuable.”
Mezzanine debt
Emerging Capital Partners, an international private equity firm focused on investing across the African continent, has committed USD25m to Wananchi Group, an East African media and telecommunications company specialising in pay television and high-speed internet services in Kenya and Tanzania.
ECP’s equity investment will be used to upgrade and expand the company’s existing network infrastructure, thereby enabling Wananchi to provide East Africa’s first triple-play service, consisting of digital pay television, high-speed internet and voice-over-IP services.
Wananchi presently serves the retail and corporate markets in Kenya and Tanzania through its consumer and corporate divisions. Wananchi’s consumer division operates under the
Excalibur, the medical sciences investment house founded by Professor Sir Christopher Evans, has expanded its business operations in Australia, Europe and the Middle East.
Excalibur has acquired fund management and advisory firm International BioScience Managers, built by Jeremy Curnock Cook (pictured).
As a result of this acquisition, Excalibur now owns a 50 per cent stake in International BioScience Managers in Australia through which it plans further expansion. International BioScience already manages a profitable life sciences fund and is expected to shortly become part of the Excalibur Group. The group is working on new funds to address opportunities in the
BlueCrest Capital Management has appointed Steve Smith as portfolio manager for the USD2.3bn AllBlue Fund.
The fund invests exclusively across a portfolio of funds managed by BlueCrest, including BlueCrest Capital International and BlueTrend.
Smith will also assume overall responsibility for global sales and client service teams and will join the firm’s executive committee.
Smith joins BlueCrest having spent several years at Credit Suisse, where he was most recently leading the global liquid alternatives team within the asset management division. He has a strong derivatives background having started his career at Bankers’ Trust and SBC O’Connor, and has significant experience
Amalgamated Bank has formed Amalgamated Capital, a New York-based division that will provide senior cash flow debt financing to lower middle market companies.
The new division, which will be under the direction of leveraged finance professional Timothy G. Clifford, will target leading private equity firms and other investors who focus on acquiring and growing middle market companies.
Derrick D. Cephas (pictured), Amalgamated’s president and chief executive officer, says: "This new lending platform is an important step for us as a bank and for the markets we will be serving. Because of dislocations in the capital markets system at the present
Butterfield Fulcrum, an alternative fund administration company, has expanded its US business development team with the addition of Christine Egan.
Egan joins Bill Neville, Jim Gabriele, John Peterson and Bill Henderson under the leadership of T. Andrew Smith, global business development head.
Since joining in April 2009, Smith has quickly built a global sales team of seasoned professionals to meet the growing demand for transparency, independence and flexibility in the hedge fund sector. Under his leadership, Butterfield Fulcrum has opened a Chicago office, upgraded its US headquarters in New York City to accommodate further growth and attracted significant talent to
The percentage of transaction professionals who believe solvency opinions will have a direct impact on the terms or completion of a transaction over the next year has doubled since before the onset of the credit crisis, according to a study released by mergermarket in association with Houlihan Lokey.
This shift in sentiment underscores a rising importance of these types of opinions for transaction professionals and boards of directors worldwide.
The study, conducted during the third quarter of 2009, compiles interviews of senior corporate executives, private equity practitioners and lawyers from the US and Europe regarding their recent and historical experience
Impax Asset Management, an Aim listed investment manager focused on the environmental sector, has appointed John McDonald as head of sales and marketing.
McDonald was previously head of alternative sales and marketing at New Star Asset Management, which he joined in 2004.
He has 25 years of experience in financial markets, 17 years of which were spent in investment research analysis and sales, followed by eight years in the sales and marketing of alternative investments.
Ian Simm, chief executive officer of Impax Asset Management, says: "Impax has ambitious growth plans and we are delighted that John, with his impeccable
TPH Partners, a middle market energy private equity fund, has closed an equity investment in a growth round of funding for Ingrain, an oilfield technology firm that specialises in digital rock physics analysis.
Ingrain uses proprietary technologies to analyse reservoir rock samples from cores or drill cuttings and deliver critical data to its oil and gas producer client base.
“We are very excited about the potential provided to the exploration and production industry by the evolving science of digital rock physics, and Ingrain is the clear leader in this field,” says Joe B. Foster, chairman of TPH Partners. “Ingrain’s techniques
Denver Alternatives has launched a separately managed account structure that provides alternative investors with enhanced multi-strategy and multi-manager capabilities.
The United Alpha Account offers investors greater control over their assets including increased transparency, incentive fees based on the performance of the overall account, and no artificial liquidity constraints.
Investors have access to any combination of ten different alternative strategies managed in-house by seasoned professionals with strong long-term performance records. Denver Alternatives’ portfolio managers can provide the allocation among these strategies or implement an allocation decision as directed by the client or its consultant. Realignment of individual strategy weights can be
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