New York Life Investments said Thursday that it has agreed to buy a 60% stake in Private Advisors, an alternative investment firm with $3.9 billion AUM. Financial terms were not announced. Private Advisors’ equity holders will retain 40%. The deal is expected to close by Dec. 31, according to a statement.
Four companies, including South Korea’s Lotte Shopping, are in the running for a majority stake in PT Matahari Putra Prima, the hypermart business owned by Indonesia’s Lippo Group, Reuters reported. Wal-Mart Stores , Casino Guichard-Perrachon and Lotte have advanced to the next round of bidding for the $1 billion business, Reuters said. Buyout shop The Carlyle Group, which was reportedly in the running, is not participating in the latest bidding round.
New York-based private equity firm Warburg Pincus has paid $75 million for a minority stake in outsourced engineering services firm Quest Global Services. Singapore-based Quest Global, which has more than 2,000 employees across India, the US, Japan and Europe, has customers in the aerospace and defense and energy industries. The company will use the new funding for growth.
Boston-based Candescent Partners has led a syndicate of firms in the buyout of Mansfield, Mass.-based Quadrant Software, which makes electronic document management software. Co-investors include Harbert Mezzanine Capital, Bush O'Donnell Capital Partners, Massachusetts Capital Resource Company and Brooke Private Equity Associates. The group bought Quadrant from its founders. Financial terms were not released.
Lockheed Martin Corp. is nearing a $350 million deal to sell its military services unit Pacific Architects and Engineers, Reuters reported. The company has seen interest from several parties since it put the business unit up for sale in June. Currently the mostly likely buyers include private equity firm Veritas Capital and engineering firm Aecom Technology, Reuters said. An announcement could come by the end of this year, or in early 2011, Reuters said.
Macquarie Renaissance Infrastructure Fund, a Russia-focused private equity fund, has paid $125 million for a 16% stake in private leasing company Brunswick Rail, Reuters reported. The deal combined an undisclosed amount of equity and debt, and is part of a planned $500 million fundraising goal for Brunswick Rail. Macquarie Renaissance is a joint venture between Australia's Macquarie Group and Russia's Renaissance Capital.
ABM Industries has paid $300 million for The Linc Group, a portfolio company of private equity firm GI Partners. The deal represents a 4.4x return for GI Partners, which acquired the company in a 2003 management-led buyout of the Linc from the Enron bankruptcy process. The Irvine, Calif.-based Linc Group provides technical building services, including ventilation and air condition services, lighting and electrical services and maintenance and repair. GI Partners has offices in Menlo Park, Calif.; London and Munich. The firm has raised $3.9 billion in capital since its formation in 2001.
Just days after Chinese regulators approved Morgan Stanley’s divestment from China International Capital Corp., a syndicate of investors, led by private equity firms Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and TPG Capital, have stepped up with an offer, Reuters reported. The two U.S. buyout shops, as well as the Government of Singapore Investment Corp. and the insurance arm of Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp., have teamed up to buy the 34.3% stake. Morgan Stanley is expected to get more than $1 billion for the stake, which it received for just $37 million more than a decade ago, Reuters said.
Huntsman Gay Global Capital LLC, an upstart buyout shop working through a $1.1 billion debut fund, is leading an investor group expected to pay $208 million for a 51 percent stake in Sunquest Information Systems Inc., a provider of laboratory, radiology and pharmacy software products to hospitals and commercial laboratories. Get the full story at Buyouts. Details of the complex transaction remain sketchy. But according to Moody's Investors Service, the company would simultaneously borrow $655 million as part of proposed bank credit facilities. Along with $38 million of cash on hand, the company would use $630 million in proceeds from the debt offering to "fund a dividend to existing shareholders, refinance $115 million of outstanding debt, and pay related fees and expenses," Moody's said. Vista Equity Partners, a technology-focused buyout shop with offices in San Francisco, Chicago, and Austin, Texas, helped create Sunquest in 2007 after buying the diagnostic systems business from Misys Healthcare Systems for a reported $381 million. The company is still listed as a portfolio company on the Vista Equity Partners Web site, suggesting it is one of the existing shareholders benefiting from the dividend. We were unable to reach executives at Vista Equity for comment, and an executive at Huntsman Gay declined to comment.
CalPERS and GI Partners have formed a partnership where GI will manage and invest a $3.4 billion portfolio of industrial and logistics related real estate businesses from CalPERS. As part of the deal, CalPERS has transferred its CalEast Global Logistics to GI who will manage it. John Saer, a former KKR partner, has joined GI as an MD and executive chairman of the CalEast businesses. GI, of Menlo Park, Calif., is a private investment firm. CalPERS is a leading public pension fund.