Barry Whyte

South African private equity firm Brait has sold a 19 percent stake in Freeworld Coatings, a Johannesburg-based paint company, to Japan’s Kansai Paint. Kansai Paint has bought a 25 percent stake overall in the company. Brait had previously attempted a 1.7 billion rand ($248.3 million) takeover of Freeworld, but it was rejected by shareholders.

Private equity firm Carlyle Group is satisfied so far with deals for minority stakes in Indian companies, despite the boom in private equity deals in India at the moment, according to Reuters. India saw $6.57 billion invested in the first three quarters of 2010, twice the $2.5 billion invested for the same period last year. Carlyle, though, is happy to sit on the sidelines and wait for the right deal, according to Devinijt Singh, a managing director at the firm.

Pandora, the Danish jewellery maker, said that the value of its IPO has moved above $2.1 billion, after arrangers of its initial public offering exercised an overallotment option on 6.68 million shares. Prometheus Invest ApS – an investment vehicle of Axcel, set up by Axcel and the founding family – now holds about 54.7 percent of Pandora.

Jeremy Neilson has joined Scalar Partners as a managing director and head of LP Advisory. Scalar Partners is based in San Francisco, California, and provides business and transaction valuation to growth equity companies and private equity firms. Neilson previously was the head of the State of Utah’s private equity program, the Utah Fund of Funds.

Murphy&Spitz Green Energy has bought a 660 kW photovoltaic power plant in northern Bohemia in the Czech Republic. Murphy&Spitz will benefit from proximity to Germany, price-indexed feed-in tariffs, and tax rebates. The firm is a 100 percent owned a subsidiary of private equity firm Murphy&Spitz Green Capital.

Guidio Padovano has joined PineBridge Investments as the Head of Latin America Alternative Investments, the company announced. Padovano, who will be based in Sao Paulo, Brazil, will oversee all private equity operations and manage the firm’s investments in the region. He was previously head of Merrill Lynch Private Equity in Latin America.

Ian Deas has been named a partner at Sydney-based private equity fund-of-funds Quay Partners, and has also taken over as head of its U.S. operations, based in San Francisco. He previously spent 18 years at Pantheon Ventures. Quay Partners manages AUD $980m ($969.2m) and has advised on programs totalling over AUD $4 billion ($3.95bn).

Sascha Zeitz has been named new chief operating officer of Strategic Capital Management AG. Meanwhile Samuel Ryhner, the head of legal and compliance, has become a partner and Jean-Claude Croset, CFO/COO, is the new head of client services. Zeitz joins SCM from Falcon Management Fund, previously AIG Fund Management.

Private equity firm 3i has transferred Crevan O’Grady, one of its European partners, Crevan O’Grady, from London to its North American office. O’Grady led the Yellow Brick Road transaction, purchasing three small telephone directories providers, merging them and then selling them for around €600 million. 3i also announced that two new senior associates, Evan Klebe from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and Michael Tai from Harvard Business School, have joined the firm.

Private equity group Acromas has raised by 11 percent its offer for Nestor Healthcare to about 112.9 million pound ($179.3 million). Acromas, partly owned by funds advised by private equity firm Permira, is still undervaluing the British-based healthcare company, according to Nestor.