Shares of Intrawest Resorts Holdings Inc (SNOW.N) fell as much as 10 percent in their debut on Friday, as the mountain resort operator's heavy debt deterred investors in a weakening U.S. market, reports Reuters. Intrawest, owned by private equity firm Fortress Investment Group LLC, has not posted a net profit for the last three years, mainly due to interest payments on its debt, which was US$1.95 billion as of June 30. Intrawest's IPO raised US$187.5 million through the sale of 15.6 million shares. Founded in 1976, Intrawest offers skiing, mountaineering and hiking and operates Club Intrawest, a private vacation club with eight locations across the United States, Canada and Mexico. Its primary offices are in Denver, Colorado, Vancouver and Banff, Alberta.
2 min read · 06 February 2014
Geneva, Switzerland-based Unigestion, an institutional asset manager focused on risk-managed equities, private assets, alternative investments and cross asset solutions, has opened an office in Toronto. With $500 million currently under management in Canada, the firm is seeking to expand its footprint and enlarge its client base among pension funds, endowments and foundations, and other institutional investors. Unigestion has hired Heather Cooke, formerly a partner at Mercer, to lead its Canadian office.
3 min read · 06 February 2014
Italy’s top two banks, Intesa Sanpaolo and UniCredit, are in preliminary talks with KKR about setting up a fund to hold some of the lenders’ problematic loans, two sources close to the matter told sister news service Reuters.
2 min read · 06 February 2014
Quadrant Software LLC, a portfolio company of U.S. private equity firm Candescent Partners, said Thursday that it has acquired Business Computer Design Inc (BCD) and ExcelSystems Software Development Inc (ESDI). No financial terms were disclosed for the deal. Chicago-based BCD and ESDI, which is located in Victoria, British Columbia, are software companies. Update: ESDI develops, supports and provides services for almost all of the software under the BCD brand. Candescent led the acquisition of the Mansfield, Mass.-based Quadrant Software in 2010.
4 min read · 06 February 2014
KPS Capital Partners, the New York turnaround shop, wrapped up its fourth fund last spring at $3.5 billion in less than three months.
5 min read · 05 February 2014
Steve Yuzpe, president and CEO of Sprott Resource Corp (TSX: SCP), has been appointed to the board of directors of portfolio company Long Run Exploration Ltd, a Calgary-based intermediate energy business focused on light-oil development and exploration in Canada. The appointment follows the departure from Long Run's board of Paul Dimitriadis, who recently resigned his position at Sprott. Yuzpe was last October named the new head of Sprott, a Toronto-based private equity firm focused on investing in natural resource sectors.
2 min read · 05 February 2014
Canada Pension Plan Investment Board said on Wednesday it will open an office in Sao Paulo in April, intent on boosting real estate and infrastructure investments in the region even as money is flowing out of emerging markets, reports Reuters. CPPIB, a global dealmaker intent on diversifying its C$192.8 billion (US$174 billion) portfolio, said the timing for opening its fifth global office is perfect, though it noted competitors like sovereign wealth funds are also hunting similar assets. CPPIB already has offices in Toronto, New York, London and Hong Kong, and Sao Paulo will serve as the hub for its investments in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru. CPPIB late last year made its first foray into the Indian real estate market, agreeing to invest US$200 million for an 80 percent stake in a real estate joint venture with India's Shapoorji Pallonji Group.
2 min read · 05 February 2014
U.S. energy-focused private equity firm Intervale Capital has invested alongside a management team to create Tier 1 Energy Solutions Inc, a provider of wireline and completion tool running services based in Edmonton, Alberta. The financial terms of the transaction were not published. Tier 1 currently has operations and sales offices in Nisku, Grande Prairie and Calgary. Intervale said the company has plans to expand its footprint to include the most active oil and gas producing regions in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. Kevin O'Dwyer leads Tier 1 as its CEO.
2 min read · 05 February 2014
There’s a huge controversy in the private equity secondaries market these days over just how much volume has been transacted, writes peHUB editor Chris Witkowsky. On one side you have Cogent Partners – a firm that has been publishing its estimate of secondaries deal volume since 2005. On the other side you have Setter Capital, a secondary intermediary that started to publish a report about secondary volume last year. The disagreement is this: Cogent estimated last year that first-half deal volume came in around US$7 billion, while Setter pegged it at about US$15 billion. Cogent, at the time, maintained that total deal volume could end up at US$18 billion to US$20 billion. Setter predicted US$34 billion.
2 min read · 04 February 2014
U.S. private equity firm The Carlyle Group has completed its previously-announced purchase of Diversified Global Asset Management Corp (DGAM), a Canadian hedge funds manager with more than US$6.7 billion in managed and advised assets. The financial terms of the deal remained undisclosed. Carlyle said DGAM will join its solutions platform alongside AlpInvest Partners, a private equity fund-of-funds with US$48 billion of assets under management, and Metropolitan Real Estate Equity Management LLC, a real estate multi-manager with US$2.6 billion in commitments. Founded in 2004, the Toronto-based DGAM invests on behalf of institutional investors.
3 min read · 04 February 2014
