Solutions
LBO France is to sell Worldwide Flight Services (WFS, a cargo handler and a leading global provider of ground handling and technical services, to private equity firm Platinum Equity.
WFS operates at over 140 major airports in more than 22 countries on five continents, and serves 300 airlines globally, including the handling of four million tons of cargo and 50 million airline passengers per annum. The company has grown from a family business to a global leader in its fields and now employs 12,000 staff worldwide.
LBO France acquired WFS in 2006 from French construction leader Vinci. Over the 2006-2015
IK Investment Partners’ IK 2000 Fund is to sell Sportfield Deutschland Holding (SportGroup), a specialist in sports and recreational surfaces systems, to Equistone Partners Europe Limited.
The parties have agreed not to disclose the financial terms of the transaction.
With over 40 years’ experience, SportGroup is a worldwide quality and innovation leader for synthetic sport and recreational surface systems with turnover of approx. EUR300 million in 2014. SportGroup develops, produces and installs artificial turf fields and tracks (both running tracks and multi-purpose surfaces). The Group operates an integrated business model with all system critical components being manufactured in-house. SportGroup
Osborne Clarke has advised Funding Circle, an online marketplace for business lending, on its USD150 million (circa GBP100 million) in equity capital fundraising.
Osborne Clarke's team was led by VC Partner Rob Wood, assisted by Simon Jones and James Taylor.
Omar Al-Nuaimi, OC's Finance Partner and client CRM for Funding Circle, says: "We're proud to have supported Funding Circle and its founders from the outset. They are on course to surpass the USD1 billion mark for investments made via their platform over the next year. It's been great to have been part of their journey so far and we're
Car-sharing platform BlaBlaCar, headquartered in Paris, has acquired 100 per cent of the shares in Munich-based carpooling.com, which operates the online portals mitfahrgelegenheit.de and mitfahrzentrale.de.
This acquisition sees the BlaBlaCar community growing to more than 20 million members in 18 markets across Europe and Asia. Members use the online system to arrange a lift or make a car-share offer.
A CMS team headed by lead partner Stefan-Ulrich Müller advised Earlybird Venture Capital and the shareholder founders of carpooling.com on all legal aspects of the sale. Daimler AG also held shares in the company.
Earlybird is based in Berlin and focuses
Harris Williams & Co has advised Driven Brands, a portfolio company of Harvest Partners, to affiliates of Roark Capital Group (Roark).
Through its two iconic brands, Maaco and Meineke, Driven Brands is one of the largest franchise platforms in the automotive aftermarket services sector. The transaction was led by Joe Conner, Jason Bass and Jershon Jones of Harris Williams & Co.’s Transportation and Logistics (T&L) Group and Chris Williams and Jonathan Meredith of the firm’s Richmond office.
“Driven Brands’ best-in-class management team has built an exceptional franchising platform that is highly regarded across the industry,” says Joe Conner, a managing
Cordium, a provider of compliance consulting, accounting, tax and software to the financial services industry, has launched Pilot, its latest compliance software solution.
Pilot, a first of its kind cloud-based corporate workflow management tool, is designed to manage complex compliance and operational tasks from start to finish. Pilot was created to help compliance professionals manage their workload and keep track of the ever-changing and convoluted global regulatory environment existing today.
Pilot is centred around an interactive compliance calendar that allows firms to build and organize their day-to-day compliance and monitoring tasks into a scalable, dynamic environment where they
HIG Middle Market (HIG), the dedicated middle market investment affiliate of HIG Capital, has completed the sale of Dent Wizard International to Gridiron Capital
Dent Wizard, based in St Louis, Missouri, specialises in automotive reconditioning. Its services help its customers sell vehicles faster and at a higher profit. In November 2010, HIG acquired Dent Wizard through a complex carve-out from Manheim and recruited a new management team. Since then, management has successfully expanded all its core service offerings and implemented a set of performance excellence tools to create the industry leading reconditioning provider.
HIG Capital Managing Director Fraser Preston, says:
findaWEALTHMANAGER.com, an online ‘dating’ service that matches affluent individuals with wealth managers, has secured GBP500,000 from angel investors to finance its development and business expansion.
The funding comes from a small group of private backers, one of whom was a user of findaWEALTHMANAGER.com who recognised the growth potential of the business after being successfully matched with a wealth manager.
The investment represents findaWEALTHMANAGER.com’s first external funding round since launch in 2012. The business has been cash-generative throughout this period, is profitable and has no debt.
The new investment will be used to meet recruitment costs, for enhancements to
Inverness Graham has successfully sold AdvancedCath, a leading designer and manufacturer of catheter systems, to TE Connectivity Ltd for USD190 million in an all-cash transaction.
The sale marks the fourth portfolio company exit for Inverness Graham in just over one year.
AdvancedCath designs and manufactures advanced catheter systems used in complex interventional procedures, for its medical device OEM customers. Inverness Graham acquired AdvancedCath in 2011 in a proprietary, "non-banked" transaction as a result of a search with the same industry experts that assisted with the successful platform-build and exit of previous Inverness Graham portfolio company ExtruMed. The AdvancedCath platform
JTC has been granted a registration status by the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) as a company service provider pursuant to Article 5 of the Company Service Providers Act, 2013.
The firm can now provide professional services to third parties including corporate entities from the jurisdiction.
As a recognised ‘Company Service Provider’, and as one of the first service providers in Malta to be granted that status, JTC (Malta) Ltd. is now authorised to provide and perform a range of services to support Malta’s growing image as a strong European and international financial centre.
As well as allowing JTC to
Events
12 November, 2026 – 8:00 am
12 November, 2026 – 5:00 pm
