Barry Whyte

The publisher of The Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times has reached an agreement on a plan of reorganization with Oaktree Capital Management and Angelo Gordon & Co. The Tribune Co filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy two years ago after real estate developer Sam Zell bought the company using piles of debt. The plan will allow the Tribune Co to exit bankruptcy.

China’s $300 billion sovereign fund, China Investment Corp, will not invest in sectors related to defence, casinos or alcohol, it announced on Wednesday. Jin Liqun, the CIC supervisory board chairman, said that it would not invest in anything that might damage its reputation. He also said that China is likely to be “one of the most exciting PR markets in the world.”

Christopher Graber and Matt London have been named as vice presidents at Chicago-based private equity firm Waud Capital Partners. Graber had been a director of TruePartners Consulting. Waud Capital Partners was founded in 1993 and seeks to invest sums of between $10 million and $100 million in healthcare services, business and consumer services, specialty distribution and value-added industrial businesses.

Private equity firm Carlyle Group is likely to get approval to sell its Taiwan cable TV unit, Kbro, next week for T$36 billion ($1.14 billion). The National Communications Commission claims that it sees "strong chance" of approval for the sale. The Tsai family, the controlling shareholder in Taiwan Mobile, will buy the cable unit.

GNC Acquisition Holdings Ltd, which is backed by Ares Management Inc and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, has filed for a $350 million IPO. GNC was bought from Apollo Management in March 2007 for $1.65 billion. It will issue Class A common shares. GNC, based in Pittsburgh, sells a range of health products and reported net income of $25.4 million dollars in the April-June quarter, on revenue of $455.7 million.

Conduit Capital Partners, a private equity firm that deals in energy infrastructure, has sold its interest in Peru’s largest electricity company, Edegel, to Inkia Energy, its partner in the investment, for $50 million. Conduit initially bought its share through its Latin Power II fund for $21 million.

Cidron, a firm owned by private equity fund Nordic Capital VII Limited, bought Swedish engineering firm Munters for 5.4 billion crowns ($787 million), sweeping in ahead of another engineering firm, Alfa Laval. Cidron offered 73 crowns per share, more than Alfa Laval’s 68 crowns offer.

Facebook will likely go public sometime after late 2012, according to venture capitalist, PayPal co-founder and Facebook board member Peter Thiel, who was speaking on Fox Business News at the time. The social networking site, which is based in Palo Alto, California, was founded by Mark Zuckerburg just six years ago and is reported to have had revenue of $800 million in 2009. Facebook’s backers include Digital Sky Technologies, Microsoft Corp, venture capital firms Accel Partners, Greylock Partners and Meritech Capital Partners, and Hong Kong investor Li Ka Shing.

Private equity firm JLL Partners intends to sells its share in McKechnie Aerospace Holdings to aircraft parts maker TransDigm Group Inc in a deal worth $1.27 billion in cash. It will be TransDigm’s biggest ever acquisition. Shares of TransDigm were $64.65 on the New York Stock Exchange on Monday, a year high, before dropping to $62. The deal will bring TransDigm's total debt to about $3 billion.

LMS Capital plc has appointed Mark Sebba as non-executive director. Sebba is the CEO of NET-A-PORTER.com, a women’s fashion retailer. LMS Capital is a London-based venture capital and private equity firm.