Crédit Agricole and Société Générale have signed a final agreement to combine their asset management operations.

MMC Ventures has led a follow-on investment round of GBP1.4m in primary healthcare company The Practice.

There were 519 M&A deals valued at USD102.5bn in the BRIC countries during the first half of 2009, representing a 34 per cent decline in volume from the same period last year and a

Pomona Capital, a global private equity firm, has held the final closing of its seventh secondaries fund, Pomona Capital VII, with commitments of USD1.3bn.

Despite the improvement in the financial markets and the expected transactions between FTSE 100 companies over the last quarter, the first half of 2009 was a dire period for the M&A

At the halfway point of 2009, private equity firms raised just over one-third the capital they were able to attract from pension funds, university endowments, foundations and other inve

Actis, an emerging markets private equity specialist, has executed an agreement to invest USD244m to acquire shares in Egypt’s Commercial International Bank.  Actis is acquiring 50 per cent of the stake held by the consortium led by Ripplewood Holdings. The transaction makes Actis the largest single investor in CIB.   Actis senior partner Paul Fletcher (pictured) says: ‘Actis is committed to the financial services sector as one of our core investment strategies within emerging markets where Egypt stands out for its excellent growth potential. Within Egypt, CIB is the market leading bank, perfectly positioned to achieve significant growth by extending

The Dublin office of Maples and Calder has advised Aepona, a global provider of telecoms software products and services headquartered in Belfast, on its acquisition of Valista, a Dublin

Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners has completed the first closing of its Winch Capital 2 growth-capital fund for EUR175m. This initial amount already exceeds the size of Winch Capital 1 (EUR165m), raised in December 2005 by the same team.   Pierre-Michel Passy (pictured), chairman of Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners, says: ‘In a difficult period for the private equity industry, raising EUR175m for this new fund within a mere three months of starting our sales initiatives testifies to the renewed confidence that investors place in our team and in its ability to support growth in the companies in its portfolios.

Clash-Media, an online lead generation service, has secured a further GBP1.3m investment from MMC Ventures.