Specialty finance firm Crown Capital Partners has launched a process for raising funds via an IPO and a fourth institutional partnership. If the Calgary-based mezzanine provider is successful on both fronts, it may achieve a new hybrid capital pool of over $400 million. That’s more than the $350 million invested in total by Crown Capital in the past 13 years.
Acasta Enterprises Inc plans to raise $275 million through an IPO, joining a line of special purpose acquisition corporations with high-profile backers raising public capital to pursue deals, Reuters reported. Acasta is headed by Anthony Melman, a former partner and managing director of Canadian private equity firm Onex Corp.
Rogers Communications Inc has made a series of deals to try to solidify its position as Canada's largest wireless operator, Reuters reported. The company said it will pay $440 million to buy struggling wireless operator Mobilicity, which is backed by private equity, and $100 million to complete an agreement to buy airwaves from Shaw Communications Inc.
Calgary-based Cenovus Energy Inc is in talks to sell Canadian oil and gas royalty lands to the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan in a deal that could fetch $2.5 billion to $3 billion, sources told Reuters. Sources said that Ontario Teachers may look to partner with another player, given the size of the deal.
Alignvest Acquisition Corp, an investment firm set up primarily to buy an operating asset, said it is raising almost double the money it set out to generate via an initial public offering on the Toronto Stock Exchange, Reuters reported. The Toronto-based firm, headed by serial entrepreneur and private equity veteran Reza Satchu, said it plans to raise $225 million.
Shred-it International, a document destruction services provider majority owned by Birch Hill Equity Partners, filed a preliminary prospectus for an initial public offering this week. The IPO launch comes hard on the heels of an offering made by another Birch Hill portfolio company: Sleep Country Canada.
Charterhouse Capital Partners has agreed to sell its stake in U.K. environmental consultancy Environmental Resources Management (ERM) to the private equity arm of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS) for an enterprise value of US$1.7 billion, Reuters reported. The Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo) is co-investing in the deal.
Chip Wilson, who founded Lululemon Athletica Inc and left its board earlier this year after disagreements with fellow directors, is now looking to potentially sell his family's estimated US$1.3 billion stake in the yogawear maker, Reuters reported. The Vancouver-based Lululemon averted a proxy war last year when Wilson agreed to sell half his stake in the company to Advent International, a U.S. private equity firm.
Canada Pension Plan Investment Board’s US$12 billion deal to buy Antares Capital from General Electric Co marks its largest acquisition to date as the $265 billion retirement system looks to add a “large, scalable and growing opportunity” offered by the largest player in U.S. middle-market loans, a key CPPIB executive told Buyouts. The Antares purchase price implies a premium of US$600 million on the book value of the business and its loans.
The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, already a major global investor, has signaled even greater ambitions with a US$12 billion transaction with GE Capital that sources said may herald larger deals, Reuters reported. The pension fund manager's decision not to seek a partner for the purchase of GE's private equity lending portfolio also highlights its confidence and suggests it may go it alone more often on future buys.