David Rubenstein, head of the Caryle Group, said that China encourages private equity investments more than any country, including the U.S. “The government of China encourages people like us to come there,” Rubenstein says. “I feel more welcome there than in the halls of Congress. Rubenstein, who was speaking at the Dow Jones private equity analyst conference Wednesday, says that China, because of its booming population, will have the world’s biggest economy by 2035. India will likely have the second largest economy while the U.S. will come in third. Brazil will probably rank fourth.
Wind Point Partners is expected to announce Thursday that it has bought Global Tube Form and Peoria Tube Forming Corp. The companies will serve as a new platform, called Global Tube, for further acquisitions. Tom Gosnell, who was president of ArvinMeritor’s commercial vehicle systems group, will be CEO of Global Tube. Both companies make tubes used in emissions, coolant, heating, air intake and exhaust handling systems used in heavy and medium duty trucks and off-road vehicles.
Middle market M&A is sizzling. “We’ve never seen the level of deal flow that we’ve seen in the last four to five months,” said Andrew Janower, a managing director at at Charlesbank Capital Partners, during a panel Tuesday at the Dow Jones Private Equity Analyst conference. Janower said he spoke recently to a boutique firm that claims to have 100 active M&A processes underway currently and 200 investment bankers at work. “That’s an indicator of how busy the M&A market is,” he said.
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.
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.
Shamrock Capital has agreed to buy a majority of Screenvision, a provider of cinema advertising. The sellers are ITV Plc and Technicolor, which had each owned 50%. ITV is selling all of its holding in the deal while Technicolor will retain "just shy of 20%," says Steve Royer, a Shamrock managing director. Shamrock will end up owning 60% while Carmike Cinemas will have the rest, Royer says. ITV will receive $80 million for its holding while Technicolor will get $60 million, according to separate statements from the companies.
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.
Shamrock Capital, the private equity firm of the Disney family, is set to buy Screenvision from the British broadcaster ITV, the companies announced. ITV will sell its 50 percent share in the cinema advertising firm to Shamrock Capital Growth Fund II for $80 million. ITV will use the funds to pay of its net debt, which it says has decreased by 175 million pounds ($271 million) to 437 million pounds ($733 million) in the six months to June 30, 2010, and has been selling off non-core assets for a number of years.
Private equity firm Apax Partners will sell Endo Pharmaceuticals to Qualitest Pharmaceuticals for around $1.2 billion in cash, the companies announced. Qualitest is a portfolio company of Apax Partners. Endo Pharmaceuticals is a U.S.-based healthcare company that focuses on high-value branded products and specialty generics.