News and Analysis

Truphone, a UK-based VOIP company, has acquired the business assets of UK SIM card maker SIM4Travel. The sale price includes Gbp1.343 million in cash and Gbp1.3 million in Truphone shares. Truphone has raised over $24 million in VC funding from firms like Eden Ventures and Wellington Partners Venture Capital.   PRESS RELEASE The Board of […]

CCC Information Services, a Chicago-based portfolio company of Investcorp, has agreed to merge with Mitchell International Inc., a San Diego-based portfolio company of aurora Capital Group. The $1.4 billion transaction will create a combined company with annual revenue of around $460 million and approximately 2,000 employees. It will provide information, workflow management systems and integrated […]

Buyouts Magazine today made official what we’ve all known for a while: Q1 deal volume hit the skids. U.S. buyout firms last quarter closed just 226 “control” deals, and the 53 with disclosed values were worth just $46.1 billion. For context, 283 deals were completed in Q1 2007, with $103 billion in disclosed values.  But […]

When I won the PE Wire NCAA tournament pool last year, no one was more surprised than me. I grew up in New York City as a rabid Knicks fan with minimal interest in college basketball. Despite my lack of experience, I accurately forecast the final score of the 2007 National Championship with an 84–75 […]

The would-be Clear Channel bankers lost yet another legal battle today, as a Texas judge rejected their motion to dismiss the case. The judge also set a June 2 trial date, and made no changes to the temporary injunction granted two weeks ago. For those living under a rock — a rock without Internet access to peHUB […]

Manoir Industries SA, a French maker of metal components and assemblies, has acquired Hi

I spent part of yesterday’s flight reading BusinessWeek’s cover story on the Freescale buyout, which a headline writer suggests is “private equity’s ugliest deal.” Let’s leave aside that hyperbole for a moment, since Refco is private equity’s ugliest deal in recent memory, and Freescale isn’t (yet) nearly as ugly as the dozens of PE-backed companies making […]

BPL Global Ltd., a Sewickley, Penn.

Xtera Communications, an Allen, Texas-based provider of optical networking and services, has acquired Meriton Networks Inc., an Ottawa-based metro optical networking company. No financial terms were disclosed.   Xtera has raised over $218 million in total VC funding, from firms like The Wellcome Trust, New Enterprise Associates and Arch Venture Partners.   Meriton had raised […]

Imeem Inc., a Palo Alto, Calif.-based social media network, has acquired Snocap, a Palo Alto