Ballard Power Systems Inc., a Vancouver, British Columbia-based maker of fuel cell technology products, has sold its material products division for up to C$12 million. Substantially all of the assets were acquired by US private equity firm ALY Holdings LLC in partnership with the division's senior management through a new company established as a result of the deal, AvCarb LLC, located in Lowell, Massachusetts. Ballard reported that the sale of its non-core divisional assets will strengthen the company's balance sheet with cash reserves.
3 min read · 04 February 2013
When Advent International’s Latin American-based team wanted to buy into CETIP, a large, profitable Brazilian clearinghouse for bonds and fixed income securities, the firm first had to convince shareholders—some 600 banks and brokerage firms—that Advent was the right partner.
6 min read · 04 February 2013
President Barack Obama said on Sunday more tax revenue would be needed to reduce the U.S. deficit and signaled he would push hard to get rid of loopholes such as the carried interest tax break enjoyed by private equity and hedge fund managers, sister news service Reuters reported.
3 min read · 04 February 2013
Calgary, Alberta-based Kanata Energy Group Ltd. has established itself as a new midstream infrastructure and service company with the closing of a C$330 million financing from a consortium of Canadian and US private equity firms. ARC Financial Corp., the Dallas, Texas-based Energy Spectrum Capital, and Teachers' Private Capital jointly backed the Kanata management team, which has a track record in Western Canada's energy industry and in building and operating midstream infrastructure assets.
3 min read · 01 February 2013
U.S. college and university endowments posted an average loss of 0.3 percent for fiscal 2012, a sharp reversal from a gain of 19.2 percent a year earlier, although private equity gained 5.1 percent, according to sister news service Reuters.
2 min read · 01 February 2013
Oroco Resource Corp., a Vancouver, British Columbia-based portfolio company of private equity firm Pinetree Capital, has agreed to sell 100% of the company's interest in the Cerro Prieto Project, a gold and silver project located in Sonora, Mexico, to Goldgroup Mining, Inc. The total consideration for the acquisition, which is expected to close by June, 2013, is US$18 million. Goldgroup Mining, a gold production, development and exploration company, is also based in Vancouver.
4 min read · 31 January 2013
The Board of Directors of Val-d'Or, Québec-based Aurizon Mines Ltd. has urged shareholders to reject a C$780 million acquisition bid by Alamos Gold, Inc., announced earlier in January. The unsolicited takeover offer, which was described by Aurizon directors as "financially inadequate and opportunistic," will remain open until February 19, 2013. Aurizon is a gold producer focused on developing existing projects in the Abitibi region of north-western Québec. The company has in past received investments from the Fonds de solidarité des travailleurs du Québec (FTQ).
7 min read · 31 January 2013
Canadian pension fund manager the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec has extended a C$50 million term loan to Cogeco Cable Inc. that will assist in the company's purchase of PEER 1 Network Enterprises Inc., a Vancouver-based internet infrastructure supplier specializing in managed hosting and cloud services. The recently-closed PEER 1 acquisition, valued at C$635 million, provided the Canadian private equity firm Clairvest Group with an exit, generating an internal rate of return of 40%. Clairvest first invested in the company in 2009.
3 min read · 31 January 2013
TC Media, a brand of Montréal's Transcontinental Inc., has acquired Groupe Modulo, a publisher of French-language educational resources and materials and a subsidiary of the Scarborough, Ontario-based Nelson Education Ltd. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Nelson is a portfolio company of Apax Partners and OMERS Private Equity. The British and Canadian buyout firms jointly acquired Nelson and its US affiliate Cenage Learning Inc. from Thomson Corp. (now Thomson Reuters, publisher of peHUB Canada) as part of a US$7.75 billion transaction in 2007.
3 min read · 31 January 2013
A new report by CB Insights says Canada was second only to the United Kingdom in the number of non-U.S. acquisitions of private technology companies in 2012. The report, which counted 2,277 acquisitions last year, noted Canada "has a lot of momentum as of late on both the financing and exit front". Thomson Reuters (publisher of peHUB Canada) has reported steady venture-backed exits in Canada in 2012, including one of the largest buys in market history, the US$1.1 billion purchase of Montréal’s Enobia Pharma Corp. by Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc.
3 min read · 31 January 2013
