NEW YORK (Reuters) – China National Offshore Oil Corp is in talks with Ghana National Petroleum Corp to bid for a stake in a large oil discovery off West Africa, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing unnamed sources. The offer for Kosmos Energy’s stake in the discovery, Jubilee, would rival a $4 billion […]
DUBAI (Reuters) – Private equity bosses in the Middle East say the worst of the financial crisis has passed, but improved capital and equity markets won’t immediately translate to large or numerous deals. Executives at one of the industry’s largest conferences, Super Return Middle East, were cautiously optimistic about the region’s health and ability to […]
FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Funds advised by U.S. private equity group J.C. Flowers & Co LLC have taken legal action seeking to prevent the full nationalisation of German bank Hypo Real Estate (HRXG.DE), the investment group said. As widely expected, the funds filed a lawsuit in a Munich court last week in a bid to invalidate […]
JO Hambro Capital Management has acquired Celsis International, a Chicago-based contract research firm for the global life sciences market. The deal was valued at approximately £55 million, and will result in Celsis de-listing from the London Stock Exchange.
GF Capital and Stockton Road Capital have acquired Airborne Inc., a Minneapolis-based maker of dietary supplements for bolstering the immune system. No financial terms were disclosed. Sawaya Segalas & Co. advised Airborne on the sale.
More Lending Thaw Predictions: This week the trigger is CD&R's stake purchase in Johnson Diversey. (AM Law) Steve Schwarzman owns Shamu: The Playgrounds of Private Equity, in which BX's new deal "could also prove to be a roller coaster in terms of value if Americans don't rediscover fun as part of the economic recovery." (Dealzone) At Least Someone is Excited about Private Equity: Guggenheim Investment Advisors LLC, which supervises $50 billion of assets, is renewing interest in private-equity funds after it halted such investments for two years because of concerns asset prices were too high. (Bloomberg) Fuzzy Channel: Citi, others give static to Clear Channel's PE firms. (New York Post) PEC VS NVCA: Have PE lobbyists thrown VCs under the bus? (Dealscape)
Atlas Holdings is in the market raising its first traditional buyout fund, two sources familiar with the situation said. The Greenwich, Conn.-based distressed investment firm had previously relied on investors to back deals on a one-by-one basis, typically investing large chunks of its own general partners’ capital. That structure is similar to that of its […]
Last week, peHUB reported that Court Square Capital Partners had quietly invested in Rocket Software, a Boston-area maker of enterprise infrastructure software. Neither firm commented, but an SEC filing now indicates that the equity amount was approximately $92 million. No word on debt, or if Court Square now has majority control. This is Court Square’s first investment in […]
MUMBAI (Reuters) – Standard Chartered Private Equity, the direct investment arm of the British bank, is close to investing in two Indian companies and sees opportunities in the country’s export service sector as Western firms cut costs, a top official said. Nainesh Jaisingh, head of StanChart’s (STAN.L) (2888.HK) private equity business in Asia’s No. 3 […]
As usual, we have a week's worth of ratings actions on the debt of LBO-backed companies from Standard & Poor's Ratings Services and Moody's Investors Service. This week was relatively slow, with the big news coming from the largest LBO of all time, KKR and TPG's buyout of TXU (now known as Energy Future Holdings). The Texas-based energy giant proposed a distressed debt exchange which will reduce its obscene debt load from $44 billion to $42 billion. Naturally the move warranted a downgrade from both Moody's and S&P. Moody's expressed concerns over "looming maturities" on around $23 billion of debt in 2014, which it said will need to be addressed before 2013. Meanwhile, carbon and mercury legislation threatens the company's "coal-fired margins," Moody's wrote. Read more on the mega-buyout's financial situation below.