PEI Staff

With an economy displaying year-over-year growth, it is time to broaden our focus from preventing the re-occurrence of what went wrong, and incent the business models, like private equity, that have moved us in the right direction.

Newalta Corp (TSX: NAL), a Calgary-based product recovery business, has agreed to sell its industrial division to Canadian private equity firm Birch Hill Equity Partners for $300 million. The deal, which is expected to close in the first quarter of 2015, will see a Birch Hill company, Revolution Acquisition LP, assume control of the unit, which provides waste reduction, resource recovery and environmental services to industrial customers across Canada. Birch Hill will also assume the unit's asset retirement obligation. Todd Moser, senior vice president of Newalta's industrial division, will lead the new entity as president and CEO. In October, peHUB Canada reported that Birch Hill had launched its fifth mid-market fund and will begin broad marketing early next year.

Whether keeping fee numbers private is right or wrong, the private equity industry would be better served if fees and returns were disclosed publicly if taking public funds.

Two months ago, the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) created BDC Capital, a new division that brings its private capital teams together under a single roof. As part of this initiative, BDC’s long-standing subordinate financing group was renamed Growth and Transition Capital (GTC). BDC's Robert Duffy told peHUB Canada that GTC’s investment activity has grown sharply of late, with its portfolio value at cost rising 49 percent since 2011 to more than $600 million today.

A meteor is coming and it is going to kill your firm’s deal flow, writes guest columnist Devin Mathews of ParkerGale. Here's what you need to do to survive the Apocalypse.

Some strategics recognize they can get more value from growing entrepreneurial businesses by appropriately incentivizing management the way private equity firms do.

Recent calls for public pension funds to disclose the terms that govern their investments in private equity funds ignore the substantial benefits that this very confidentiality provides the pension and its beneficiaries, writes Steve Judge, CEO of the Private Equity Growth Capital Council.

Boston-based Battery Ventures said it hired software executive Russell Fleischer as a partner for its private-equity business amid a buyout environment that offers rich returns but hard-to-find deals.

Private capital can play a meaningful role in certain areas of the energy infrastructure build out across North America, but it is not always the best option.

A recent study claims woman venture capitalists underperform their male peers, in part because of lack of male mentoring of young female VCs. The findings seem wrong on so many levels.