Middle-market private equity firm Gryphon Investors has acquired a majority stake in Riverside, Calif.-based K&N Engineering, a provider of air and oil filtration products for the automobile industry. Terms of the deal were not released.
Sony Corp. is selling its nearly 50% stake in an LCD joint venture with Samsung Electronics to the South Korean company for $940 million, Reuters reported over the weekend. The seven-year-old venture cut its capital by 15% in July and industry sources had said Sony was negotiating an exit, aiming to switch to cheaper outsourcing for flat screens for its TVs while Samsung pushes ahead with next-generation displays, Reuters wrote.
Exor SpA, the investment company of Italy's Agnelli family, has agreed to sell its travel and tourism company unit Alpitour to private equity funds Wise SGR SpA and J. Hirsh & co., Reuters wrote Friday. Terms of the deal were not released.
Babson Capital announced that it provided $22.2 million of mezzanine debt financing and made an equity co-investment of $2.2 million to support Kohlberg & Co.'s acquisition of SouthernCare Inc. SouthernCare is based in Dallas and is a provider of hospice care. The company was formed in 1994.
ConvergEx Group, a software provider for brokerage and investment technology firms, said it terminated its merger agreement with private equity firm CVC Capital, partly because of probes by U.S. regulators, Reuters reported Friday. CVC Capital was looking to buy ConvergEx, which is partly owned by Bank of New York Mellon, for $1.9 billion, Reuters wrote.
Templeton Strategic Emerging Markets Fund III has acquired a minority stake in Latin America-based parking company Estapar. Terms of the deal were not released. Estapar operates 810 parking lots in Brazil.
RightNow Technologies Inc., the publicly traded online customer service company, said Friday that its shareholders have approved a merger with Oracle Corp. In October, Oracle said it would buy RightNow for $43 per share in cash, or approximately $1.5 billion.
Gaming software maker Cantor Entertainment Technology Inc., a unit of financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald, has filed to raise up to $100 million in an initial public offering, Reuters reported. The Nevada-based company told the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission in a preliminary prospectus that Cantor Fitzgerald would underwrite the IPO.
Middle-market buyout shop Genstar Capital will acquire Innovative Aftermarket Systems, a marketer, administrator and underwriter of vehicle protection products and related services sold through franchised automobile dealers. The company is based in Austin, Texas. Terms of the deal were not released. Macquarie Capital acted as financial advisor to IAS in the transaction.
(Reuters) – Asia’s private equity firms face a shrinking pool of bank loans as European lenders pull back from the region, crimping both investments and re-financings for buyout-backed companies and adding to the list of challenges the industry will meet in 2012. In addition to tighter financing, Asia’s private equity industry faces an IPO market […]