Golden Meditech’s hospital subsidiary, Golden Meditech Hospital Group, has entered into an agreement to issue senior five per cent redeemable convertible notes due in 2014 with an aggregate principal amount of USD28m (HKD217m). The monies raised will be used to accelerate business developments in China. Under the agreement, Golden Meditech Hospital Group will issue 15,747 new shares to investors upon full conversion, valuing the entire group in excess of USD200m. Upon full conversion, the note holder will hold approximately 13.61 per cent of enlarged share capital of Golden Meditech Hospital Group, and Golden Meditech’s holdings will be diluted from current

Hellman & Friedman, a private equity investment firm based in San Francisco, has completed the closing of Hellman & Friedman Capital Partners VII, a USD8.8bn fund and the largest in the firm’s history. With the closing of HFCP VII, Hellman & Friedman has raised over USD25bn of committed capital since its first partnership in 1987. The firm has also completed a management transition plan that was previously announced to limited partners in mid-2008. Philip Hammarskjold has been appointed chief executive officer, succeeding Brian Powers (pictured) who will become the firm’s chairman. Patrick Healy has been named deputy chief executive and

American Capital, parent company of European Capital Financial Services, has closed its Frankfurt affiliate. The closure of the Frankfurt office is in response to the global downturn in the private equity markets over the past two years. The assets originated by the Frankfurt office of European Capital will continue to be owned by European Capital Limited and continue to be managed by the London branch of ECFS, headed by Nathalie Faure Beaulieu. "We would like to thank Robert von Finckenstein, managing director Germany, and his team for their valuable contribution in building a significant Mezzanine franchise in the DACH region

Blue Belt Technologies, a Pittsburgh-based medical device company which develops surgical instruments for use in orthopaedic and neurosurgery procedures, has closed on a USD2.4m private equity series A round of financing. The round was led by private investors and included the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse and Innovation Works (Pittsburgh) and consisted of both new investments and the conversion of existing convertible notes. "This investment will be used to finalise development and prepare for FDA submission of our core product, the Precision Freehand Sculptor, and will provide the resources necessary to prepare for full market release of our orthopaedic and neurosurgical

Golub Capital has provided a USD23.5m one-loan debt financing to support Cortec Group’s acquisition of Katena Products. Katena, based in Denville, New Jersey, is a producer and supplier of precision-manufactured micro instruments for ophthalmic surgeries of the anterior segment of the eye (i.e., cataracts, corneal transplants, Lasik, glaucoma). Katena’s products are sold globally to hospitals, ambulatory surgery centres and individual ophthalmic surgeons. "We are excited to be working again with Cortec, who has a lot of expertise and success in the medical device industry. We are pleased that we were able to provide them with a total solution to their

Navigation Capital Partners, an Atlanta-based middle market private equity firm, has completed the realignment and financial recapitalisation of its portfolio company Five Star Food Service, a vending, coffee service and food service provider. Aurora Management Partners assisted Five Star management and NCP with the strategic realignment while NCP initiated and structured the financial recapitalisation. Reed Smith and Kilpatrick Stockton served as legal counsel for NCP and Five Star, respectively. The financial recapitalisation increases NCP’s majority ownership stake in Five Star and will enable the company to execute its future strategic operating and financial plan. NCP appointed Alan Recher as chief

The third quarter proved to be a mixed bag for US venture capitalists as capital raised via initial public offerings hit the highest level since 2007, but mergers and acquisitions of venture-backed companies totalled 71, consistent with pre-boom numbers of 1999, according to Dow Jones VentureSource. Overall, venture-backed liquidity is down 49 per cent from USD5.32bn in the third quarter of 2008 to USD2.70bn in the most recent quarter. “While we’re not seeing 2007’s double-digit totals, the liquidity market for US venture-backed companies is showing signs of a significant thaw,” says Jessica Canning, director of global research for Dow Jones

The Riverside Company, a global private equity firm investing in companies with enterprise values of under EUR150m, has acquired Crioestaminal, a company that isolates and cryopreserves stem cells from umbilical cord blood. Riverside is acquiring the Portuguese company with some of the founders and key members of the management team. Founded in 2003 by a group of young entrepreneurs with experience in the Portuguese healthcare industry, Crioestaminal gives the parents of newborn babies the opportunity to collect, isolate and cryopreserve umbilical cord blood stem cells. Today, more than 30,000 parents have used Crioestaminal to save stem cells from their children.

The PowerShares Listed Private Equity Portfolio will begin tracking the Global Listed Private Equity Index, and will be renamed the PowerShares Global Listed Private Equity Portfolio. The fund will continue to be offered on the NYSE Arca under the existing ticker symbol PSP. The fund had previously tracked the Red Rocks Capital Listed Private Equity Index. "The universe of publicly-listed private equity opportunities outside the US is quite significant, and we are pleased to be broadening the scope of PSP to provide investors with a global exposure to this asset class," says Ben Fulton, executive vice president global product development