FORWARD FEATURES CALENDAR

Latest

MERGERS

Mid-market private equity house LDC has funded the GBP30 million merger of three cloud-based managed services businesses – DoubleEdge Professional Services, Foehn and Metaphor IT – to form Kerv. 

ESG

LGT Capital Partners ESG Report 2020 reveals that 81 per cent of private equity managers already integrate ESG into their investment process, and a large part of the focus is shifting toward climate awareness. According to Keimpe Keuning, executive director at LGT Capital Partners and one of the authors of LGT’s report, climate issues continue to grow as a priority on the agenda for firms in the financial industry. In his view, there are two pressing issues in particular to deal with for the private equity industry: working toward standardising data in order to monitor adherence to the Paris Agreement, and

NEWS

Evolution Equity Partners has led a Series C round in Quantexa, a decision intelligence software company that enables organisations to make better decisions, raising a further USD64.7 million in funding.

NEWS

London-based growth investor SFC Capital has led a GBP 500,000 seed round for biotechnology startup Novai, a product of University College London.  Founded by Professor Francesca Cordeiro from UCL and Imperial College London and headquartered in London, Novai was created through Wellcome Trust funding. The fresh capital will be used to develop Novai’s AI technology that helps standard medical imaging equipment identify eye disease at a cellular level up to 18 months earlier than current gold-standard processes. Novai appointed Gordon Bethwaite as acting CEO and added three new senior board members in connection with the investment. Bethwaite has worked in

SURVEY

Central Europe’s private equity markets are feeling the impact of Covid-19 – but there is more optimism than during the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, suggesting the experience the region’s deal-doers have accumulated may buoy investments and create a basis for new deals, according to the latest Deloitte Central Europe Private Equity Confidence Survey.

NEWS

RedBird Capital Partners has entered into a definitive agreement with Toulouse FC to acquire an 85 per cent majority stake in the French Ligue 2 football club.  Toulouse FC was relegated, along with Amiens, from the top tier of French football in April when clubs voted to end the season early due to the coronavirus pandemic. Founded by Gerald Cardinale, RedBird has over USD4 billion of equity under management. Its investment partners have included the New York Yankees, the Dallas Cowboys and the United States Women’s National Soccer Team.  Toulouse owner Olivier Sadran has stepped down as majority owner and President, but will retain

CoroNAVIRUS

Vital Capital has partnered up with the US Government’s Kenya Investment Mechanism to provide funding to Kenyan agri-businesses that have been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. Vital Capital is an impact investment private equity fund focused on companies in sub-Saharan Africa. “We are excited to launch this major collaboration to support Kenyan agribusinesses in what is an incredibly challenging economic environment,” said Nimrod Gerber, managing partner of Vital Capital.  KIM is a five-year program funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to unlock financing to businesses that have been hit by the global pandemic.   Vital Capital and

SURVEY

London-based financial firms appear to be in no rush to have the majority of their staff back in the office, according to new research by Theta Financial Reporting. Only 800 of Goldman Sachs’s 6,000 London staff have returned, while fewer than 2,000 of the 12,000 at JP Morgan are back in the office, the consulting firm’s new study revealed. Almost one third of Brits say their company’s finance teams will not be returning to the office with other employees in July and will now work at home most of the time. It also emerged that 70 per cent of City-based workers do not

NEWS

British Patient Capital has invested USD65 million in SV Health Investors’s USD265 million fund, SV7 Impact Medicine Fund (IMF), which is dedicated to investing in biotech companies.  The IMF is SV’s first biotech fund. It will aim to turn scientific breakthroughs into biotech companies producing high impact precision medicine drugs for poorly treated diseases. So far the fund has invested in UK-based Alchemab, which develops antibody therapies for diseases including cancers, infectious diseases, and neurodegenerative conditions. Cancer Research UK launched a partnership with SV Health Investors in June 2019 to focus on speeding up the translation of the organisation’s research

NEWS

CommerzVentures has made a USD6 million investment into Concirrus, a speciality analytics insurtech company. This latest investment by CommerzVentures follows a recent announcement which saw London-based VC firm AlbionVC lead on a USD 20 million series B funding round, which included participation from current investors IQ Capital and EOS Venture Partners, as well as several angel investors. Royal Park Partners acted as exclusive financial advisors to Concirrus and its board of directors on the deal. With many new clients added to its customer portfolio in the last quarter, Concirrus continues to demonstrate and reinforce its strong credentials with some of

Events

12 November, 2026 – 8:00 am

Directory Listings