Private Equity
White Star Capital, the startup funder co-founded by ex-technology deals banker Eric Martineau-Fortin, has raised a second, US$180 million fund that was significantly oversubscribed, Reuters reported. The fund, which had originally aimed to raise US$140 million, will look to invest US$1 million to US$6 million in about 20 new companies and has already invested in eight. White Star, which has its Canadian office in Montréal, said it would continue to focus on companies that use data as a competitive advantage and which it can help grow globally.
2 min read · 04 June 2018
Tyson Foods Inc (TSN.N), the No. 1 U.S. meat processor, said on Friday it would sell Sara Lee Frozen Bakery and three other non-protein brands to private equity firm Kohlberg & Co, as the company sharpens its focus on its core business.
1 min read · 04 June 2018
Israeli defence electronics contractor Elbit Systems said this week its wholly owned subsidiary Cyberbit raised US$30 million from Canadian private equity investor Claridge Israel. Cyberbit provides cyber training and simulation technology as well as detection of cyber attacks and response. The investment will facilitate Cyberbit’s expansion of its sales and marketing operations, primarily in North America, enhance customer and partner support and boost development, Elbit said. Claridge Israel is an investment partnership between Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec and Claridge Inc, the family office of Stephen Bronfman. It was launched in 2015.
1 min read · 04 June 2018
U.S. hedge fund Paulson & Co is set to name a group of activist investors that will work together to try to drive changes and better returns from gold mining companies after years of dismal industry performance, sources told Reuters. The Canadian gold-mining index has lost 40 percent of its value in the past decade, compared with a 9 percent gain in the benchmark TSX index and a 95 percent rise in the S&P 500. Gold has risen 46 percent in the same period. The alliance is unusual because there is no similar group of investors targeting a specific sector, activism experts say.
3 min read · 01 June 2018
Leverage levels for buyouts are close to pre-credit crisis levels as banks are more willing to underwrite highly leveraged deals following the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s softened stance towards lending risk, Reuters reported. So far during Q2 2018, leverage for U.S. buyouts averages 6.57 times, the highest level since it reached 6.65 times during Q3 2014. Leverage at this level had not been seen before that since 2007, before the credit crisis hit when leverage on buyouts topped out at 6.8 times on average.
3 min read · 31 May 2018
India’s Reliance Communications expects to complete its asset sale to Reliance Jio Infocomm and Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management in coming weeks, after the bankruptcy appeals court halted insolvency proceedings against the debt-laden company, Reuters reported. The US$2.7 billion sale of wireless assets will include airwaves and mobile masts to Jio and Brookfield. Like other established Indian telecom companies, RCom has been hit by a fierce price war over the last year. It shut its mobile operations late last year.
2 min read · 30 May 2018
Canada’s biggest public pension funds could be long-term buyers of Kinder Morgan Canada Ltd’s Trans Mountain pipeline but are unlikely to invest until the $7.4 billion project has been built, several sources told Reuters. Frank McKenna, Toronto-Dominion Bank’s deputy chairman, said he expected pension funds and private equity players to be interested in the asset as well as other pipeline or infrastructure players. “I think there will be a lot of private sector interest in this project once the political risk is taken out of it,” he said.
2 min read · 29 May 2018
Ottawa will buy Kinder Morgan Canada Ltd’s Trans Mountain pipeline for $4.5 billion in hopes of saving the project that faces formidable political and environmental opposition, Reuters reported. Finance Minister Bill Morneau said purchasing the pipeline was the only way to ensure that a planned expansion could go ahead. Ottawa backs plans to boost capacity of the line to a Vancouver-area port so Canadian crude gets greater access to foreign markets. Earlier this year, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec disclosed a 7.8 percent stake in Kinder Morgan Canada.
3 min read · 29 May 2018
A consortium led by Swiss asset manager Partners Group Holding will buy Techem from Macquarie in a deal that values the German metering company at an enterprise value of 4.6 billion euros (US$5.4 billion), Reuters reported. The buyers include Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan as well as Techem’s management team. They plan to further develop the company, which supplies energy invoicing and energy management in buildings, in existing markets and expand into new geographic markets.
1 min read · 25 May 2018
The sale of U.S. private equity firm ArcLight Capital Partners’ North Sea Midstream Partners (NSMP), an oil and gas pipeline business, could be hit by renewed U.S. sanctions on Iran, sources told Reuters, as one of its major clients is part-owned by the Iranian Oil Co. Parties interested in NSMP include Canada's OMERS Infrastructure which has teamed up with Macquarie, JP Morgan, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and KKR, which is working with BlackRock, the sources said. It was not clear whether they had bid. ArcLight initially created NSMP in 2012 to invest in the midstream sector of the North Sea’s oil and gas industry.
2 min read · 24 May 2018
