Eolia Renovables is a leading independent power producer in the Spanish renewable energy sector. Oaktree acquired the business in 2015. Financial terms were not disclosed.
AIMCo’s investment in Eolia Renovables provides its clients exposure to a company that owns a large portfolio of renewable energy assets with long-term revenues contracted under the Spanish regulatory regime, as well as, a pipeline of potential development opportunities in Spain. Eolia Renovables will complement AIMCo’s existing portfolio of global investments in utilities, power generation, and transportation of over $6.5bn.
General Atlantic and CVC competing for Premiership Rugby, English rugby union.
General Atlantic joined to race to buy a stake in Premiership Rugby, an English professional rugby union. Premiership Rugby has already rejected a £275m ($355m) offer from CVC.
GA’s offer came after other groups also expressed interest, including CVC. It is unclear whether GA’s offer was higher than CVC’s or for a majority or minority stake.
Intu gave Whittaker-led consortium more time for bids.
Intu Properties Plc, a British Real Estate Investment Trust, largely focused on shopping centre management and development, gave a consortium led by Deputy Chairman John Whittaker until Nov. 22 to make a firm offer or walk away from a bid, according to a Reuters report.
The proposed deal, backed by Saudi Arabia’s Olayan Group and Brookfield Asset Management, valued the FTSE 250 firm that owns Manchester’s Trafford Centre at £2.91bn ($3.7bn).
Intu said, “good progress” had been made with the consortium.
Cerberus in talks to take on $2.8bn of NordLB's ship loans.
According to Reuters, Cerberus is in exclusive talks with NordLB, a German Landesbank and one of the largest commercial banks in Germany, to take on €2.5bn ($2.8bn) of non-performing shipping loans that the German public sector lender wants to shed ahead of a planned stake sale.
The divestment of the portfolio is contingent on a deal that NordLB is aiming to strike in early December to shore up its balance sheet and cover write-downs on the value of any loans it sells. The bank scored worst among German lenders in European Union regulatory stress tests and its majority owner, the German state of Lower Saxony, has said it is working on strengthening NordLB’s capital buffers.
NordLB declined to comment, while Cerberus and the other suitors either declined to comment or were not immediately available for comment.
KKR invested in Calabrio, provider of analytics software.
Calabrio is a leading provider of customer engagement and analytics software. The company also provides technical support, implementation, installation, and upgrade services. Financial terms were not disclosed.
With this investment, Calabrio will continue its focus on providing world-class products and services to customers who increasingly want to avoid on-premises environments in favour of low-resource-intensive cloud deployments. With the global cloud-based contact centre market expected to grow at a rate of 25% from 2017 to 2022, Calabrio’s multi-tenanted solution is poised to serve this fast-expanding customer base.
“Calabrio is taking the world’s contact centres to the cloud,” said John Park, Calabrio’s Chairman of the Board and Member at KKR. “The company’s first-to-market WFO cloud offering eases the transition for enterprises and has driven significant global growth. This additional investment by KKR will further Calabrio’s momentum and leadership in the thriving customer engagement and analytics arenas.”
St. Louis, Missouri-based Electric Power Systems International Inc provides outsourced electrical engineering, testing, repair and maintenance services. No financial terms were disclosed.
The transaction creates a platform for EPS to accelerate its growth by aggressively pursuing its strategic initiatives. Steve Reed, President and CEO of EPS commented: “We are excited to partner with IGP as we continue to grow and strengthen our business. IGP specialises in supporting industry-leading companies such as EPS. Their expertise and long track record of partnership makes them the right partner as we move into the next stage of our growth.”
Chicago-based ABCOMRENTS is a provider of event technology equipment rentals and services. No financial terms were disclosed.
“For nearly 30 years, ABCOM has been able to consistently adapt within an ever-changing technology and events landscape, building a strong, well-respected brand in the process,” said Brent Paris, Managing Partner of Dubin Clark. “We are excited to partner with such an innovative team and to help ABCOM grow its market share across the country.”
ABCOMRENTS was advised by Miller Cooper & Co, Livingstone Partners and Horwood Marcus & Berk.
Converged Security Solutions is a cybersecurity company based in Reston, VA. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Converged Security Solution was created when Akoya Capital Partners, Hillcrest Holdings and current management acquired and merged two Virginia-based security companies Evolver and eVigilant.
Stephen Gurgovits, Jr., Managing Partner of Tecum, stated: “We are excited to partner with Akoya and Hillcrest to support CSS’ management team as they work to address the increasingly complex security needs of their clients.” Mike Williamson, Associate at Tecum, added: “Under the leadership of Dr Bob Friedenberg, CSS is uniquely positioned to bring an innovative managed security service to the market.”
Riversand is a SaaS master data management and product information management solution provider based in Texas. Financial terms were not disclosed.
“We are committed to continuing to invest in the data management space with a specific focus on the cloud. As enterprises of all sizes continue to prioritise investments in digital transformation initiatives, we believe companies such as Riversand will be at the forefront of enabling this vision,” said Will Palmer, a Managing Director at Crestline “We have been impressed with the execution at Riversand and the adoption of its product by the market. Riversand just closed a record-breaking Q3 and is moving towards capturing a bigger share of the cloud data management market. Our additional investment will support expanded growth initiatives to capture business in new markets through increased sales and marketing efforts.”
Traditions Behavioral Health is a Napa, California-based company, which provides permanent outsourced physician psychiatric services to institutional and community-based programs. Financial terms were not disclosed.
“WindRose believes that with the growing focus on mental health, our nation’s psychiatrist shortage is a concern that must be addressed,” said Alex Buzik, Partner with WindRose. “We have evaluated many businesses in this sector and have identified TBH as the premier platform. TBH has an exceptional reputation for providing high-quality care, and we are pleased to be partnering with them as they expand into new markets.”
Hancock Whitney Bank served as the lead arranger for a senior secured credit facility. McDermott Will & Emery advised WindRose, and Foley & Lardner advised TBH.
Bartek Ingredients is a speciality chemical manufacturer serving food & beverage and industrial end markets in Canada. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Matthew Chapman, Partner at TorQuest, said, “Bartek is TorQuest’s and its predecessor funds’ sixth chemical platform and reflects our strategy of acquiring leading chemical businesses. With Bartek being in our home market, we have followed the Company for many years and have tremendous respect for the business, production facilities and its workforce. We are delighted to be partnering with incoming CEO John Burrows and the existing management team, and to provide equity capital to support the next stage of Bartek’s growth.”
Bain Capital Ventures closes $1bn fund.
According to a Reuters report, the venture capital division of the eponymous Boston-based investment firm raised a new $1bn fund to invest in startups, adding to a year of big-dollar fund-raising by tech investors.
This is Bain’s eighth fund. Recent successful initial public offerings by Bain-backed companies, which include DocuSign’s $629m debut in April and SendGrid’s $131m offering last year, helped the venture firm attract more than enough interest from investors to round out the fund.
Blackstone eyes General Electric assets as it seeks to decrease leverage.
GE said it will sell up to 101.2m Baker Hughes shares on the open market and that Baker Hughes, an international industrial service company and one of the world's largest oilfield services companies, will buy 65m of its shares from GE, using a $1.5bn repurchase arsenal Baker it already has authorised. Based on Tuesday’s share price, the sale would raise about $4bn. After the sale, GE will own about 50.4 % of Baker Hughes. Blackstone reportedly is lurking around the asset disposal.
GE bought Houston-based Baker Hughes in July 2017 and agreed to maintain its 62.5% stake until the middle of next year. GE has since focused on debt and its core businesses of jet engines, power plants and renewable energy. “The agreements announced today accelerate that plan in a manner that mutually benefits both companies and their shareholders,” said Lawrence Culp, CEO of GE.
GE shares rose 4.5% to $8.35. Baker Hughes was up 1.6% to $24.01.
AMP Capital provided a $190m loan to EQT-backed Synagro.
Synagro is the leading US provider of residuals management solutions & land application services, offering capabilities across the spectrum of wastewater environmental services. The company owns or operates 21 dryers, incinerators and compost facilities that help customers beneficially reuse their biosolids. The company is also the largest US player servicing municipal wastewater treatment plants.
The debt facility will be used to refinance the company’s outstanding Term Loan B and to finance ongoing growth projects. AMP Capital Infrastructure Debt Partner Patrick Trears says: “Water and wastewater is a core area of focus for our strategy due to the essential nature of water assets and their insulation from cyclical trends.”
Saudi Arabia's PIF eyes a $700m stake in Legendary.
According to a Reuters report, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund is exploring the acquisition of up to a $700m stake in Legendary Entertainment, the US movie studio behind films such as “Jurassic World” and “Interstellar”. Legendary is currently owned by Wanda, led by billionaire Wang Jianlin, which paid $3.5bn for the company in early 2016.
Legendary has not had any formal discussions with PIF. Plans of the Saudi fund are presently in an early stage. PIF is in talks to hire a financial adviser to assist it with its bid. Both sides declined to comment.
Berkshire invested in JPMorgan, Oracle and Travelers Cos.
Reuters reports that the holdings were disclosed in a regulatory filing detailing Berkshire’s US-listed stock investments as of Sept. 30, according to which, Berkshire owned about $4.02bn of stock in JPMorgan, $2.13bn of Oracle stock and $460m of Travelers stock.
The JPMorgan investment closes a notable hole in Berkshire’s stock portfolio, which already contained large investments in other financial services companies, including American Express Co, Bank of America Corp, Goldman Sachs Group Inc, US Bancorp and Wells Fargo & Co.
While the filing did not say, who bought which stocks, larger investments are normally made by Buffett, who often buys stock when he cannot find whole businesses to purchase.
