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Norwest Equity Partners has exited Shock Doctor after a near six year hold, selling the company to Bregal Partners.

Canadian private equity firm Annapolis Capital confirmed that it has to date secured $200 million in commitments for its seventh partnership, Annapolis Energy Fund VII LP. That’s effectively two-thirds of the way to the fund’s $300 million hard-cap target — a target that should be met no later than the fall of 2014. In that event, Fund VII will close at double the capitalization of Fund VI (2011). That’s quite an achievement for the young Calgary-based firm, founded in 2006 by managing partners Peter Williams and Jody Forsyth. And it augers well for a domestic oil and gas sector that has hefty investment spending requirements over the long run but relatively few sources of risk financing.

Montréal professional services consultant WSP Global is in acquisition-based growth mode. And the public company's two largest investors, the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, are once again stepping up to help fund its deal-making. WSP has announced plans to buy Focus Corp, a Calgary-based provider of engineering and geomatics services to clients in the oil and gas industry. The price tag: just over $366 million. To finance the transaction, WSP will rely in part on the Caisse de dépôt and CPPIB, to make a private investment totaling $80 million.

Direct investments by the California Public Employees' Retirement System and OMERS Private Equity have generated strong returns, suggesting that a recent Harvard Business School paper showing that directs do no better than fund investments won’t end debate on the question.

In the early weeks of 2014, Eric Margolis, long-time owner of vitamins, minerals and nutrition supplements wholesaler Jamieson Laboratories, sold the Toronto-based business to U.S. private equity firm CCMP Capital Advisors. The deal, valued at over $300 million, was at once a succession event and a transition to new owners who are able to assume risk and effectively position the company for its next phase of long-term growth. CCMP managing directors Joe Scharfenberger and Rich Zannino and executive adviser Doug Cahill recently shared the details of their growth strategy for Jamieson with peHUB Canada.

The auction of JP Morgan Chase’s private equity business, One Equity Partners, in the market since at least November, has hit an impasse, according to three people with knowledge of the situation.

Direct investments by two of the world’s largest pension funds have generated strong returns, suggesting that a recent Harvard Business School paper showing that directs do no better than fund investments won’t end debate on the question. OMERS Private Equity, which manages just more than $7 billion in private equity assets for the $65 billion Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, has averaged generating about a 20 percent IRR on directs over the last five years. That is well above the 14 percent net IRR generated on fund commitments, according to Paul Renaud, president and CEO of  OMERS Private Equity.

In a room full of eager young, suit-clad MBA students, and his industry peers, Blackstone Group senior managing director David Blitzer got positively Zen about his role in changing the nature of private equity.

Private equity funds face increasing deal-making competition in 2014, Bain & Company consultants said on Monday, with a record $1 trillion cash pile adding to the pressure to find strong investments.

Evercore’s fledgling private equity secondaries advisory group, in one of its first major mandates since forming last summer, will run the sale of a portfolio of about $1 billion worth of private equity fund interests managed by a division of GE Capital, according to four people with knowledge of the situation.