San Francisco-based firm Bay Grove Capital has acquired cold storage company Flint River Services for an undisclosed amount. By buying the Georgia-based Flint River, Bay Grove Capital adds to its growing portfolio of cold storage companies including CityIce and Seafreeze Cold Storage.
GHX Industrial, which is backed by The CapStreet Group, has acquired Delta Rubber Co. Financial terms were not announced. Houston-based GHX is a fabricator and supplier of industrial fluid transfer and sealing products. Delta, of Stockton, Calif., is an industrial distribution company. CapStreet is a Houston-based private equity firm.
Today's big non-news event comes from the Carlyle Group. The very acquisitive PE firm plans to file papers for an IPO in late 2011. This means a stock sale may not occur until the following year, or 2012, according to Bloomberg News. Carlyle has long been expected to go public. In 2007, the PE firm planned to launch an IPO but opted instead to sell a 7.5% stake to Mubadala Development Co., an arm of the Abu Dhabi government.
Diamond Castle said Monday that it has invested in Professional Directional Enterprises, a Conroe, Texas-based provider of directional and horizontal drilling services to oil and natural gas exploration and production companies. Financial terms weren't announced. Diamond Castle is a New York PE firm.
After a near 20-year hiatus from fundraising, Pittsford Ventures Management is back in the market with a new pool, this one earmarked for emerging markets. The fund, the firm’s fifth, is expected to raise $400 million and could hit $500 million, sources say. A first close is expected in April when the fund could total $75 million, a person says. New York-based Pittsford is a special situation firm with a VC focus. The firm targets cleantech, healthcare, informatics, and telecommunications. Pittsford has identified potential investments in a U.S. drug discovery firm that targets HIV and certain cancers, as well as a Russian company that has developed water purification technology, according to a Pittsford pitch letter obtained by peHUB.
The Carlyle Group, a PE firm, has agreed to buy a 55% stake in Claren Road. Financial terms weren't announced but Claren Road will get cash, ownership interest in Carlyle and performance-based contingent payments. Claren, a long-short credit hedge fund with $4.5 billion AUM, will reinvest nearly all of the cash proceeds back into Claren Road funds. Citigroup, which seeded Claren Road in 2006, and Goldman Sachs Petershill Fund, which bought a minority stake in 2008, are both selling as part of the deal. The transaction is expected to close by year end.
Communications cable maker CommScope will stick with a $2.9 billion buyout offer from The Carlyle Group, after a “go-shop” period ended without a superior offer from another buyer, Reuters reported. On Oct 27, Carlyle offered to buy CommScope for $31.50 a share in cash. CommScope is based in Hickory, North Carolina.
Buyout Shop CVC is mulling a bid for British pub company Punch Taverns, Reuters reported, citing a piece in the Mail. The private equity firm is reportedly in talks with Punch adviser Goldman Sachs about a bid. Punch Taverns controls 6,000 pubs in the UK.
UK-based media group Chorion may place a bid for Hit Entertainment, a media and entertainment distribution company owned by private equity firm Apax Partners, Reuters reported, citing a story in the Sunday Times. The deal could reportedly reach as high as 1 billion pounds ($1.58 billion). Jeffries is advising Chorion on the deal, Reuters said.
You know it’s a busy December when bank meetings are outnumbering holiday parties.
By one calculation, thirty-one leveraged transactions launched last week, twelve on Wednesday alone. There were the de rigueur dividend recaps – Decision Resources, Earthbound Farm, Flexera Software, Harbor Freight, HDT Worldwide, Hyland Software, Novelis, and TARGUS. But there were also some genuine LBOs in the mix: Advantage Sales, FilmYard, Sunquest, Syniverse, Transtar, and UTEX.
We run through the roll call for a subtle corporate finance point: That’s a lot of deals.