Angela Sormani

Airbnb, a community marketplace to discover and book unique spaces from people around the world, has joined forces with Springstar, a global internet incubator founded by Klaus Hommels, Harish Bahl, and Oliver Jung. Springstar will provide strategic guidance in the expansion of Airbnb’s international operations in select markets around the world.

SolArc, a provider of commodity management software solutions for companies operating across the commodity supply chain is to be acquired by Hellman & Friedman portfolio company Open Link Financial, a provider of energy, commodities, trading, and risk management (C/ETRM) solutions. Since 2003, SolArc has teamed with Technology Crossover Ventures for private equity funding.

Energy Transfer Partners has entered into an agreement to sell its propane operations, consisting of Heritage Operating and Titan Energy Partners to AmeriGas Partners for approximately $2.9 billion.

A Carlyle Group -led consortium, consisting of Yunfeng Capital, a private equity fund backed by Alibaba.com Ltd founder Jack Ma, has acquired an about 80 percent stake in GDC Technology, an Asian provider of servers for digital cinemas, reported Reuters. The Carlyle consortium paid about $75 million for the stake, said Reuters.

Belgian financial group KBC will sell its insurance subsidiary Fidea to private equity firm JC Flowers for 243.6 million euros ($337.75 million), reports Reuters.

Central and Eastern European focused Mid Europa Partners has completed the acquisition of a 65% stake in Kent Hospital Group, a private hospital operator based in Izmir, Turkey. In addition, Mid Europa entered into an agreement to increase its stake to up to 90% over time.

Duet Group, a global alternative asset manager, has integrated the TLG Capital team into Duet Africa Private Equity. The move will enhance key synergies that exist between the firms - leveraging regional experience and local presence from TLG Capital’s investment history.

Northern European private equity investor EQT VI has closed its latest fund at 4.75 billion euros ($6.58 billion) with strong interest from new investors in Asia, Middle East and North America.

MedData has acquired Data Management (DMI), a provider of physician billing services to pathologists and emergency departments. MedData is a portfolio company of Baird Capital Partners, the US-based buyout fund of Baird Private Equity (BPE). DMI was a portfolio company of Lakeshore Capital Partners.

Xand Corporation, a provider of hosting services has been sold to a management team led by David Struwas and backed by ABRY Partners. DH Capital, an investment banking firm serving companies in the Internet infrastructure and communications sectors acted as financial advisor.