Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS) saw its net assets under management rise above the C$60 billion mark in 2012, increasing C$5.7 billion year over year. The Canadian pension fund also posted a 10% return on its total investments last year, based on “strong performance in its private market portfolio”. OMERS’ overall private market portfolio had a 13.8% investment return, led by returns of 19.2% from internally-managed buyout fund OMERS Private Equity.

GE Capital today announced it is serving as administrative agent on a $150 million senior secured credit facility to support the combination of retailing operations of golf good stores Golf Town and Golfsmith which now become Golfsmith International and will operate a combined 151 retail locations across the U.S. and Canada, along with an e-commerce [...]

OMERS Ventures, the venture capital investment arm of Canada’s OMERS pension plan, announced Monday that it has hired Derek Smyth as a managing director. Smyth worked previously as a partner at Edgestone Capital Partners, and also worked with Bridgescale Partners. The addition of Smyth is the second such announcement this month for OMERS Ventures. The firm recently added former PeopleSoft executive Howard Gwin as a managing director.

OMERS Ventures, the investment arm of the OMERS pension plan, has added Howard Gwin as a managing director. Previously, Gwin has worked as president of Solect Technology Group and as EVP of Worldwide Operations at Peoplesoft Inc.

Canadian pension fund Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System has sealed additional financing for its acquisition of Scotland-based shipping services company V.Group, Reuters reported Friday. HSBC and Citi joined the Royal Bank of Canada in underwriting a $260 million loan for the acquisition. OMERS acquired V.Group in July from private equity firm Exponent for $520 million backed by leveraged loans solely underwritten at the time by RBC, Reuters wrote.

OMERS, one of Canada’s largest pension funds, has opened an office in New York City. The fund, with $53 billion in net assets, will have a 30-person team working in New York, specializing in real estate, infrastructure, private equity and capital markets.

ABP and OMERS announced the formation of INKEF Capital, a €200 million venture capital fund focused on “knowledge economy” startups in Canada and the Netherlands.

Kohlberg & Co. has sold U.S. Infrastructure Corp., a provider of outsourced sub-surface utility locating services in the U.S., to OMERS Private Equity. No financial terms were disclosed for the deal, which was managed by Harris Williams & Co.

LONDON (Reuters) – Canadian pension fund Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS) has emerged as favourite to buy port and shipping agent Inchcape Shipping Services (ISS), the FT reported in its Thursday edition. OMERS’ bid to buy ISS comes as a string of other Canadian pension funds move into the buyout business, looking to carve [...]

Sponsor-to-sponsor deals aren’t always popular, but they’re certainly in vogue right now.

The first quarter of this year saw a surge in sponsor-to-sponsor, or secondary buyouts, in which one private equity firm sells a portfolio company to another private equity firm (or group of firms). Data provider Preqin reports 24 such transactions last quarter worth $7 billion in deal value, compared to just $5.1 billion for 43 deals in all of 2009. And this doesn’t even include a rash of transactions announced today (see below).

What’s driving the activity? First, private equity pros are desperate to do deals. Despite everyone’s peacocking that ’08 and ’09 were “the best investing opportunities of our lives,” most buyout pros were all talk. The deal volume speaks for itself-PE pros were largely on the sidelines during