Chris Witkowsky
As Halloween night approaches, Second Opinion brings you ghoulish news about bond king Bill Gross feeling guilty about his wealth, the FAA relaxing rules around using electronic devices on planes and employees from Google, Oracle and Red Hat reportedly sent to help the government fix its healthcare website.
Hotel chain Extended Stay America Inc said it expects to sell 28.3 million common shares at $18-$21 each in an initial public offering, valuing the company at as much as $4.2 billion.
Crown Holdings, a manufacturer of packaged products for consumer marketing companies, has agreed to acquire Mivisa Envases, a Spanish maker of two- and three-piece food cans and ends, for €1.2 billion from The Blackstone Group, N+1 Mercapital and management. Citigroup Global Markets acted as financial advisor to Crown and provided committed financing for the transaction.
Brookfield Asset Management has held a final close on $7 billion on its Brookfield Infrastructure Fund II. Fund II will invest in infrastructure, with a focus on transportation, renewable power, utilities and energy assets in North and South America, Europe and Australasia. Brookfield beat its $5 billion target for the fund.
Olympus Partners is selling its investment in Neptune Finance, a business Olympus formed to create a diverse portfolio of senior second loans in 2008 to take advantage of the decline in senior loan pricing. Olympus more than doubled its investment in Neptune over the period, though terms of the sale were not disclosed. Olympus also did not disclose the identity of the buyer.
Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan has acquired Busy Bees Nursery Group, the largest childcare provider in the U.K. Terms of the deal are not being disclosed, but Busy Bees' management will maintain a significant stake in the business.
Francisco Partners has completed the sale of NexTraq, which provides fleet management applications and services to small and mid-sized fleets in North America, to FleetCor Technologies. Under Francisco's ownership, NexTraq grew more than 20 percent annually.
NovaQuest Capital Management has closed its NovaQuest Pharma Opportunities Fund III on $459 million. Fund III is focused on providing structured finance solutions to biopharmaceutical companies. The NovaQuest team spun out of Quintiles Transnational Holdings in 2010.
Graphite Capital has sold talent acquisition and management services company Alexander Mann Solutions to New Mountain Capital for 260 million pounds. Graphite backed the management buyout of AMS in 2007.
As your Thursday opens, First Read brings you news about the Dark Mail Alliance, which claims to have developed a way to keep the government out of your email, the stunning financial collapse of a Brazilian tycoon and someone won the World Series last night.