Wesco Aircraft Holdings, an aerospace equipment supplier owned by the Carlyle Group, has priced its initial public offering at $15 a share, below the previously set range of $15.50-$17.50, Reuters reported. The IPO raises $315 million for the company, giving it a market value of $1.28 billion. Carlyle will hold a 65.5% stake after the IPO.
1 min read · 28 July 2011
LBC Credit Partners acted as the sole lender for a $36.5 million one-stop senior credit facility to support Frontenac Company's recapitalization of Wenner Bread Products, the company announced Thursday. Wenner Bread is a manufacturer of frozen, par-baked, and fully-baked dough, breads and rolls. LBC Credit also make an equity co-investment in Wenner as part of the deal. Frontenac Company is a Chicago-based private investment firm.
2 min read · 28 July 2011
Fairfax Financial Holdings and WL Ross & Co. will each grab a 9% interest in the Bank of Ireland, following their investments this week, Reuters reported Thursday. The two firms were among the group of investors who bought a 1.1 billion euro ($1.58 billion) stake in the bank. Other investors include Boston-based Fidelity Investments and the California-headquartered firm The Capital Group.
2 min read · 28 July 2011
Private equity firms including Advent International, Cinven and Warburg Pincus are considering bids for a group of GlaxoSmithKline's non-prescription products, Reuters reported. Up for sale are several over-the-counter drugs including painkillers and vitamin supplements. The products have sales of around 500 million pounds ($817 million), representing about 10% of the company's total consumer healthcare business, Reuters reported.
3 min read · 28 July 2011
On the heels of a $10 million venture round this summer, Act-On Software, which is developing cloud-based integrated marketing platforms, has acquired the assets of marketing automation software maker Marketbright. Terms of the deal were not released. Beaverton, Oregon-based Act-On is backed by venture capital firms Trinity Ventures, U.S. Venture Partners and Voyager Capital, as well as by Cisco.
2 min read · 28 July 2011
Chicago-based middle and lower-market investment firm Monroe Capital has expanded its team, adding Thomas Karle, Laura Kraus, Cameron Fleming, and Lori Potter. Karle and Kraus will serve as managing directors. They join from at MFC Capital Funding. Potter joins from GE Capital and GMAC Structured Finance. Fleming worked most recently for Golden Tree Asset Management.
3 min read · 28 July 2011
UBS has set up an asset management unit in Beijing to work on private equity deals in the country. The unit will help launch private equity funds, make direct private equity investments and provide other related management and advisory services, Reuters reported. UBS follows banks like Goldman Sachs, and private equity firms Blackstone and the Carlyle Group, into China’s $650 billion private equity market.
2 min read · 28 July 2011
Lombard Investments has exited its stake in Somboon Advance Technology, a Thailand-based auto parts manufacturer, earning a return of 3.5 times its investment, the firm announced. Lombard backed the company in 2004.
2 min read · 28 July 2011
Hoping to compete with daily deals sites like Groupon and Living Social, Gannett Co. is expanding its DealChicken site to more than 50 cities by the end of the year, Reuters reported. Gannett, the publisher of USA Today and 81 other U.S. daily newspapers, started the deals site in September, and has expanded to nine cities since, including Detroit and St. Louis.
2 min read · 28 July 2011
LightSquared, a Harbinger Capital-backed telecommunications start-up, will pay Spint Nextel $9 billion over the next 11 years to build a high-speed wireless network that LightSquared will use to sell wholesale services, Reuters reported. Also under the agreement, Sprint has the option to buy up to half of LightSquared's network capacity, Reuters said.
1 min read · 28 July 2011
