Italian coffee maker Lavazza said this week it bought 80 percent of Kicking Horse Coffee in a deal valuing the Canadian company at $215 million, Reuters reported. Under the deal, Elana Rosenfeld, who founded the Invermere, British Columbia-based organic coffee brand in 1996, will own the remaining 20 percent and will continue to run the company as chief executive. The seller was U.S. private equity firm Swander Pace Capital. Swander Pace partnered with Rosenfeld in 2012 and made the investment through its Branch Brook Holdings partnership with Jefferson Capital Partners and United Natural Foods Inc.
Champion Iron Ltd is thinking small with its plans to bring Québec's giant Bloom Lake iron ore mine back to life, Reuters reported. CEO Michael O'Keeffe intends to slash costs while cutting millions of tonnes from a planned production expansion. The strategy runs counter to the traditional economy of scale formula, which bumps up production for proportional cost savings. U.S. private equity firms Wynnchurch Capital and Resource Capital Funds invested $30 million in Champion last year.
U.S. M&A standards continue to influence the Canadian market, but despite the general trend of convergence in the cross-border legal market, deal terms in the Canadian M&A market still tend to offer more protection to the buyer, particularly with respect to indemnification, write Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP Partner Marc Kushner and Associates Michael Budabin McQuown and Jillian Mulroy. In a PE Hub Canada feature article, they argue that deal-makers in Canada can profit by keeping abreast of the latest developments and tactically applying the prevailing norms.
FirePower Capital has completed the debut transactions of its new lending operation, backing a big-data SaaS company and a realty brokerage software platform. FirePower, a Toronto investment bank, launched its private capital division in late 2016. The unit oversees Gap Debt fund, earmarked for mezzanine financings of lower-mid-market companies. The fund was capitalized with an initial $100 million-plus by FirePower principals, high-net-worth investors and an unidentified U.S. strategic partner.
Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), one of the world's biggest infrastructure investors, is regularly losing out in bidding wars for such assets, as investors seek alternatives to low-yielding government bonds, Reuters reported, citing CPPIB's chief executive. CPPIB is one of the world's biggest investors in infrastructure such as roads, bridges and tunnels but its CEO Mark Machin said high valuations were making it harder to do deals in the current environment. "We are consistently outbid for assets around the world because they are really priced almost to perfection and there's an enormous amount of capital chasing infrastructure, particularly in developed markets," Machin said.
Onex Corp has set a US$6.5 billion target for its fifth flagship fund, which would be the largest in the private equity firm’s 33-year history. In its report of first-quarter 2017 results, the Toronto investor said it recently launched fundraising for Onex Partners V. Onex, a listed firm, plans to commit about US$2 billion. Closing on US$6.5 billion would give the fund about 14 percent more in committed capital than its predecessor, which collected US$5.7 billion in 2014.
U.S. buyout firm TPG Capital Management has raised its cash bid for Fairfax Media Ltd, offering A$2.76 billion (US$2.04 billion) for the struggling Australian publisher and sending its shares to a six-year high, Reuters reported. The fresh offer from TPG and partner Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board would allow shareholders to cash out completely rather than leaving them with scrip in a piecemeal collection of small assets including radio, regional newspapers and television streaming. Fairfax is the publisher of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian Financial Review, but its best-performing asset is property listings website Domain, which has boomed amid the decline of newspaper earnings.
Canada's Brookfield Asset Management has agreed to buy Light SA's stake in Brazilian renewable energy company Renova Energia SA and eventually become controlling shareholder, a source with direct knowledge of the talks told Reuters. Brookfield will first acquire a 20.3 percent stake owned by Light in Renova, worth about US$64 million. A second step to become controlling shareholder will involve a capital injection of 800 million reais, diluting controlling investor Centrais Elétricas de Minas Gerais SA, the source said.
Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) is considering a bid for Dominion Diamond Corp and is studying the Canadian miner's books, people familiar with the process told Reuters. The move comes after Dominion, the world's third largest diamond producer by market value, put itself up for sale in late March, following an unsolicited US$1.1 billion approach by U.S. billionaire Dennis Washington. CPPIB is one of more than five parties that have signed an agreement with Dominion to get access to its confidential data, one source said. It is unlikely that the pension fund will make an offer for the company on its own, and if CPPIB decides to proceed with a bid, it may financially back a partner with mine operation expertise, the sources said.
Home Capital Group, Canada's biggest non-bank lender, is in talks to divest about $2 billion in assets to help pay down a high-interest loan and delay a potential sale of the entire company, sources told Reuters. The Toronto company wants to sell all or part of its commercial mortgage portfolio, its consumer finance business and a small portion of its traditional residential mortgage portfolio to raise the $2 billion. U.S. buyout firms Cerberus Capital Management LP, Fortress Investment Group LLC and Apollo Global Management LLC are among those in active talks with Home Capital about buying some of its assets. Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, as well as other pension funds and some private equity firms, are in talks about providing an alternative loan, the sources said.