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Bright Horizons Family Solutions, a Bain Capital portfolio company, has acquired Work Options Group Inc., a Boulder, Colo.-based provider of back-up care solutions for both children and elders. No financial terms were disclosed. Read more » |
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Hub International Ltd., a Chicago-based insurance brokerage, has acquired the assets of Gemini Group Inc., a Denver-based employee benefits broker and consultant. No financial terms were disclosed. Hub was taken private in 2007 for $1.8 billion by Apax Partners and Morgan Stanley Principal Investments. Read more » |
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United Road Services Inc., a Romulus, Mich.-based provider of vehicle transportation and logistic services, has acquired Autolog Auto Transport, a Linden, N.J.-based vehicle logistics provider. No financial terms were disclosed. United Road is owned by The Gores Group. Read more » |
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Standard & Poor's Ratings Services has lowered the corporate credit ratings of Aleris International Inc. from B to CCC+, and left its ratings on CreditWatch with “negative implications.” The Beachwood, Ohio-based aluminum products company was acquired by TPG Capital in 2006 for approximately $3.3 billion. www.aleris.com
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Monitor Clipper Partners has closed its third buyout fund with $500 million in capital commitments, according to LBO Wire. It had been targeting $800 million. www.monitorclipper.com
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Welcome to Ponzi-Town
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This is what happens when tens of thousands of laid-off bankers have a lot of time on their hands. They create YouTube videos of Bernard Madoff rapping. About Libor. And 2 & 20.
If that didn't sate your novelty Madoff hunger, there's the Bernard Madoff ringtone, comprised of phrases from his famous "fraud" speech. Both via Cityfile. Read more » |
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Synchronous Aerospace Group, a portfolio company of Littlejohn & Co., has acquired Helicomb International Inc., a Tulsa, Okla.-based provider of aerospace composite structures. No pricing terms were disclosed for the deal, which included equity financing from Littlejohn and debt financing from Jefferies Finance. Read more » |
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Rockbridge Growth Equity has acquired Northcentral University, a Prescott Valley, Ariz.-based online university with around 7,500 current students. No financial terms were disclosed. Rockbridge was advised on the deal by Berkery Noyes. Read more » |
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Pfingsten Partners of Chicago has formed Sangamon Industries LLC, a special purpose vehicle that will make investments in underperforming or distressed manufacturing and distribution businesses. The move is concurrent to Pfingsten beginning to invest out of its $525 million fourth fund, which closed in Q2 2008. Read more » |
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FleetPride, an independent aftermarket distributor of heavy-duty truck and trailer parts, has acquired E.H. Burrell Co., a wholesale distributor of parts and accessories for commercial trucks and heavy equipment. No financial terms were disclosed. FleetPride is owned by Investocrp, Banc of America Capital Investors and company management. E.H. Burrell Co. was advised by The March Group. Read more » |
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CIVC Partners has acquired Goldline International Inc., a Santa Monica, Calif.-based precious metals trading company, for over $50 million. Company management also participated. Read more » |
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Private equity firm Apollo Management LP is among the largest creditors of Lyondell Chemical Co., Bloomberg reported, citing a person with direct knowledge of the matter. The U.S. operations of LyondellBasell, the world’s third-largest petrochemical company, filed for bankruptcy protection on Tuesday, under the weight of a massive debt load and slumping demand. Apollo is part of a group providing debtor-in-possession financing to fund Lyondell’s operations, according to the person cited by Bloomberg, who asked not to be identified because Apollo’s stake hasn’t been disclosed. Spokespersons for Apollo and Lyondell were not immediately available for comment. The U.S. operations have obtained $8 billion in debtor-in-p |
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SEOUL (Reuters) - Creditors of Daewoo Electronics have ended talks to sell the South Korean appliance and TV maker to U.S. private equity firm Ripplewood Holdings and would look at ways to restructure Daewoo, a bank official said on Wednesday. The collapse of the talks marks the third failed attempt to sell loss-making Daewoo. Tighter credit in the aftermath of the global financial crisis and falling asset values have seen many acquisition deals fall through around the world. Ripplewood was picked in late October as the favoured bidder for Daewoo, formerly part of the failed Daewoo Group and now owned by creditors. A bid price has not been disclosed. A consortium of India’s Videocon Industries (VEDI.BO) and RHJ International (RHJI.BR), the holding company for |
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LONDON (Reuters) - The value of UK private equity takeovers fell to the lowest level in 13 years between October and December due to a lack of debt funding and the rapidly cooling economy, a leading research group said on Wednesday. The value of buy-out deals reached just 994 million pounds ($1.48 billion) in the fourth quarter compared with 5.7 billion pounds for the same period of 2007 and 5.6 billion pounds in the third quarter of 2008, said the Centre for Management Buy-out Research (CMBOR). CMBOR, founded by the Nottingham University Business School and sponsored by Barclays Private Equity (BARC.L), said total buy-out value for 2008 fell to 19.1 billion pounds from a record tally of 45.9 billion in 2007. “Last year started off in good shape with the stron |
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HONG KONG/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China and Belgium plan to raise about 3 billion yuan ($439 million) for their second joint private equity fund with a focus on small Chinese companies, sources briefed on the plan said on Wednesday. The planned fund, to be called China-Belgium Direct Equity Investment Fund II, follows a similar fund launched in 2005 that is now fully invested, the sources said. In 2005, Haitong Securities (600837.SS), one of China’s largest brokerages, and European financial group Fortis (FOR.BR) (FOR.AS) won permission from Beijing to set up an asset management joint venture in Shanghai to manage the 1 billion yuan China-Belgium Direct Equity Investment Fund I. “If you think the first fund is a kind of test, then the upcoming second fund w |
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peHUB Second Opinion 1.6
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What a Find: A family finds $10,000 in cash in a box of Annie's Organic crackers purchased from Whole Foods. In a most-improbable zany mix-up, the cash turns out to be some lady's life savings. "The Lake Forest woman, whose identity was not released, had lost faith in her bank and decided the box would be a safer place for the money." Apparently not. (Business Pundit)
The Anonymous Equity Private: Speaks with Marketplace, leaving a few clues as to her identity. (HT AR). Now Hiring: A Job Posting for a Wall Streeter interesting in gaming from A VC. Get Over It Guys: Even though it is completely irrational in a recession, applications for luxury management MBA programs remains high. (BusinessWeek) Read more » |
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Joe Marren has departed from independent investment bank Sagent Advisors, where he was a Managing Director since 2005, peHUB has learned. He has joined a firm called K Stone Partners, where he is the President and CEO, his former employer told peHUB. No information regarding the objective of K Stone Partners was available. Prior to joining Sagent, Marren was the Global Head of M&A Business Development at Citigroup. Read more » |
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At Least $6 Billion Worth of SPACs Will Hit Their Deadline This Year
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 There hasn’t been a new SPAC deal announced in months, after what seemed like a nonstop flurry of “SPAC-Attack!” announcements. Yet as I recall, SPACs raised $12 billion in 2007. According to research site SPAC Analytics, and 52 SPACs, or $10 billion worth, have yet to find an acquisition. If we subtract the $3.8 billion they raised in 2008, we can roughly estimate at least $6 billion worth of SPACs will be meeting their 18-month deadlines to strike a deal in the coming year. Even if they do find a willing seller, those SPACs have a boatload of headwinds working against them. For starters, you may have noticed the public markets have redefined ugly. SPACs have almost universally seen their share prices drop this year, which bodes poorly for getting a deal approved. Then we have the natural buyer of SPAC shares—hedge funds. It’s an understatement to say they’ve been blasted by redemptions. The blind pools are dry as the desert, and their shareholders have every motivation to vote against any proposed merger to get their money back. Read more » |
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CHICAGO, Jan 6 (Reuters) - The winning bidder in the long-awaited sale of the Chicago Cubs baseball team will be identified this week, three sources close to the process said on Tuesday. “Bidders have been told a single party to negotiate with will be chosen this week,” said one source, who asked not to be identified because the sale has not closed. Tribune Co, which owns the Cubs and filed for bankruptcy protection last month, declined to comment. Cubs Chairman Crane Kenney said in December that he expected a sale by spring training, which starts in February. While the Cubs are not part of the bankruptcy filing, analysts expect the court to weigh in on the sale, which they estimate could attract bids of around $1 billion, the most ever paid for a U.S. s |
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More Troubles in Fundraising-Land
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 CapitalSouth Partners has extended the target closing date for its third fund a full year because of market turmoil. Buyouts reported in March 2008 that the Charlotte, N.C.-based firm was set to close CapitalSouth Partners Fund III LP with a target of $330 million in May 2008. But in spring of last year the managers of the fund saw prospective investors were starting to delay commitments amid the growing economic uncertainty so they decided to extend the fundraising to May 2009, a source familiar with the effort told Buyouts. CapitalSouth, which invests in lower middle-market companies, began raising the fund in May 2007. No investors have reneged on previous pledges, however, and the fund has picked up several new investors this time around, such as the Read more » |
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Paul Dickerson has joined Pegasus Capital Advisors as an operating advisor. He is the former COO of the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Read more » |
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ICV Capital Partners has sold Sterling Foods Ltd., a San Antonio, Texas-based provider of specialty bakery products, to TGF Management. No financial terms were disclosed. Read more » |
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Yellowstone Landscape Group, a portfolio company of Gridiron Capital, has acquired Austin Outdoor, a Bunnell, Fla.-based provider of landscaping services in Florida and The Bahamas. No financial terms were disclosed. Read more » |
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Goody’s Family Clothing, a privately held apparel retail chain which emerged from bankruptcy in October, plans to liquidate its remaining stores as the U.S. economic recession has undermined its ability to continue operating. “The company is in the processes of obtaining bids to liquidate substantially all collateral and inventory,” said Cathy Hershcopf, a bankruptcy partner at law firm Cooley Godward Kronish LLP. “The retail environment is very difficult and they did not have sufficient capital to weather the bad times.” The law firm is acting as a liaison between Goody’s vendors and the company and Prentice Capital Management. PGDYS Lending LLC is Goody’s parent company, and Prentice is the manager of PGDYS.< |
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Innkeepers USA Buyout Doomed, Analysts Estimate
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 For background, Apollo Investments is a BDC traded on NASDAQ under the ticker AINV. It makes equity, debt and senior secured loan investments across a variety of sectors and has a $1.34 billion market cap. You may remember the fund's CEO, John Hannan, resigned in November; he's been replaced by COO James Zelter. The fund took Innkeepers USA Trust private in April 2007 for $1.5 billion. According to the analyst report, the deal brought Innkeepers from 4x leverage to an estimated 10x proforma expected 2008 EBITDA (page nine has a nice before and after cap structure chart). The report states that the investment is "significantly underperforming," and likely to see a rocky '09. Read more » |
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Charles Bott has joined BC Partners as a managing director and co-head of investor relations, according to Dow Jones. He is the former European chairman of financial sponsors at Goldman Sachs Group. www.bcpartners.com Read more » |
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Total Safety U.S. Inc., a Houston, Texas-based portfolio company of DLJ Merchant Banking Partners, has acquired Wholesale Radio Rental Inc., a provider of portable communication devices for use in the petroleum, oil and gas and petrochemical industries. No financial terms were disclosed. Read more » |
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Macrovision (Nasdaq: MVSN) has terminated its agreement to sell the TV Guide Network to One Equity Partners for $225 million, after reaching a $255 million agreement to sell TV Guide Network and TV Guide Online to Lionsgate (NYSE: LGF). Read more » |
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Yankee Hill Management has acquired a majority stake in Great Western Products Co., a Hollywood, Ala.-based maker of movie theater concessions and equipment, according to LBO Wire. No financial terms were disclosed, except that PNC Financial Services provided senior debt and South Franklin Street Partners provided mezzanine debt. www.gwproducts.com Read more » |
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The Carlyle Group has concluded fundraising for Carlyle Partners V, as first reported by LBO Wire. The final total is $13.7 billion, which is short of the original $15 billion target. www.carlyle.com Read more » |
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HgCapital has sold Orbiscom, an Irish provider of B2C, B2B and P2P payment solutions to the global payments industry, to Mastercard for approximately $100 million. HgCapital had originally invested around $17.5 million into Orbiscom back in 2001, at a post-money valuation of approximately $145 million. Read more » |
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Penda Corp., a Portage, Wis.-based maker of thermoformed solutions, has agreed to merge with Durakon Industries Inc., a provider of thermoformed automotive components. No financial terms were disclosed. Penda is a portfolio company of Resilience Capital Partners, while Durakon is a portfolio company of Littlejohn & Co. Both private equity firms will be the shareholders of the combined company. Read more » |
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