Northwestern Management Services (NMS), which provides management and administrative services and facilities for the Gentle Dental Group, has been sold to Linden Capital Partners, a healthcare focused middle market private equity firm. NMS was majority owned by the Beekman Group and its founder David Willens. Gentle Dental Group, another portfolio company of the Beekman Group, has also been sold to Dental services business Gentle Dental has been sold to Linden Capital Partners. Terms of both deals were not disclosed.
Sverica, a San Francisco-based middle market private equity firm, has completed a recapitalization and growth investment in Inpatient Medical Services, an Akron, Oh.-based medical services company. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Ares Management has agreed to buy a majority stake in Smart & Final Holdings in a deal valued at $975 million. Senior management is retaining a minority stake. The seller was Apollo Global Management. Commerce, Calif.-based Smart & Final is smaller store, warehouse-style, “no membership fee,” multi-format retailer that serves both households and smaller businesses. Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse, and Deutsche Bank Securities are providing debt financing. UPDATE: Robert Robison, R. Alec Dawson, Juan Damian Guzman and Andrew Milano of Morgan Lewis provided legal advice to Smart & Final. Dan Mandel, Dan Fetters and Thomas Amster of Morgan Stanley acted as financial advisor to Smart & Final. Michael Woronoff and Daniel Ganitsky of Proskauer Rose supplied legal advice to Ares.
Today's large dividend news comes from NBTY, which makes vitamins and nutritional supplements. Ronkonkoma, N.Y.-based NBTY said its parent company, Alphabet Holding Co., plans to issue and sell $500 million in notes. NBTY said it expects to use proceeds from the notes, plus cash on hand, to pay a cash dividend to shareholders of about $672 million.
Summer Street Capital Partners has put an undisclosed amount of money into Midwest Technical Institute, a private, post-secondary school focused on education in the fields of welding, HVACR, allied health and cosmetology. Midwest Technical has campuses in Illinois and Mississippi, the firm said. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
McGraw-Hill Companies Inc.'s education unit is expected to draw final bids from private equity firms Bain Capital and Apollo Global Management as well as rival Cengage Learning Inc., in a deal that could fetch around $3 billion, several people familiar with the matter said, according to a Reuters report. Cengage, the No. 2 U.S. college textbook publisher, and the two private equity firms are working on final offers for McGraw-Hill Education, the world's second-largest education company by sales, with the bids due later in October, the people said.
H.I.G. Capital's European affiliate, H.I.G. Europe, has signed the first deal out of its Madrid office, which was opened earlier this year. The firm has reached a definitive agreement to acquire 49.99% of the capital of Vértice 360 Servicios Audiovisuales for a total of 16 million Euros ($20.7 million).
Australia's Discovery Metals Ltd unexpectedly rebuffed a takeover offer led by a Chinese private equity firm valuing the copper miner at A$824 million ($844.31 million), but said it remained open to a higher bid, Reuters reported Thursday. Cathay Fortune Corp., founded by Chinese billionaire Yu Yong, teamed up with the state-backed China-Africa Development Fund to make an offer of A$1.70 a share last week. CFC already owns a 13.7 percent stake in the copper miner.
The private equity arm of Standard Chartered will invest $35 million in Indian visual entertainment services group Prime Focus at a maximum price of 53 rupees per share, writes Reuters. The funds will be used to support future growth plans of the company.
How do private equity firms deal with banks' reluctance to stump up the money to back buyouts? They become lenders themselves, writes Reuters. Private equity firms ranging from CVC, one of Europe's largest, to the smaller H.I.G. Capital are filling the vacuum left by retreating European banks, which have slashed leveraged lending by 42 percent to $72 billion so far this year, writes Reuters.