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Saudi investor Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal and his Kingdom Holding Company has acquired a $300 million stake in Twitter. The investor announced the deal today, saying that the “strategic stake” was the result of “several months of negotiations.” The news was first reported by Bloomberg. This summer, Twitter announced that it was raising $800 million in a two-tranche funding deal.

New York-based private equity investor Patriarch Partners has acquired Hussey Copper, a copper product manufacturer. Terms of the deal were not released. Hussey Copper has operations in Leetsdale, Penn., and Eminence, Kentucky.

Merit Capital Partners has exited its investment in Versatile Processing Group Inc., selling the company to Dallas, Texas-based private equity investor Insight Equity II L.P. Indianapolis-based Versatile is a provider of metal processing and recycling services to the electric utility and manufacturing industries. Terms of the deal were not released.

Crown Castle International Corp. will buy privately held NextG Networks Inc. for about $1 billion, Reuters reported. NextG, which is owned by a group of investors led by Madison Dearborn Partners, operates thousands of distributed antenna systems in major U.S. cities including New York and Chicago, Reuters wrote. Crown Castle is a publicly traded wireless tower company.

Education Growth Partners has made a “significant investment” in Sightlines, a provider of performance measurement and data benchmarking services to higher education institutions. No details of the investment were released. Sightlines was formed in 2000, and is based in Guilford, Conn.

New York-based middle-market private equity firm American Securities has acquired Global Tel*Link from Veritas Capital. Terms of the deal were not released. Equity was provided from funds managed by American Securities and from management. Global Tel*Link is a provider of communications products for the corrections industry.

The Carlyle Group is exiting its investment in auto parts supplier Diversified Machine Inc., selling the company to Platinum Equity, Reuters reported Friday. Terms of the deal were not released. Previous estimates put the value of Diversified Machine at more than $400 million, Reuters wrote.

iNovia Capital has raised $110 million for its third fund, iNovia Investment Fund III L.P. The firm said investors in the fund include Teralys Capital, BDC Venture Capital, AVAC Ltd., Alberta Enterprise and the BC Renaissance Capital Fund. iNovia focuses on investments in information technology companies in North America.

Online games maker Zynga Inc. is expected to make a strong debut on the Nasdaq stock exchange on Friday after it priced its initial public offering at the top end of a preliminary range, Reuters reported. Analysts and investors had expected Zynga to raise the price or boost the number of shares it was selling, since demand had seemed strong in recent weeks. The IPO, from the maker of "CityVille" and "FarmVille" games, has been highly anticipated because it is seen as a way for investors to get a slice of Facebook's growth before the social network goes public itself, Reuters wrote.

Clayton Associates has added Larry Kloess as a senior advisor. Kloess is the former president of the HCA TriStar division of hospitals. In the new role, Kloess will advise both the firm and FCA Venture Partners, the venture capital investment manager of Clayton Associates, on current portfolio companies and on prospective investments.