Private Equity
Canadian waste management company GFL Environmental Inc said this week a group of investors led by U.K.-based BC Partners, Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan and others will provide new funding, giving GFL an enterprise value of $5.13 billion, Reuters reported. GFL, whose ‘Green for Life’ slogan is seen across major Canadian cities, said its current CEO Patrick Dovigi will remain in the role. Dovigi will also maintain his ownership in the company, while the new investors will acquire the interests of current partners including U.S.-based HPS Investment Partners, Australia's Macquarie Infrastructure Partners III and Canada's Hawthorn Equity Partners.
2 min read · 23 April 2018
JPMorgan Chase & Co has tested a new blockchain platform for issuing financial instruments with the National Bank of Canada and other large firms, seeking to streamline origination, settlement, interest rate payments and other processes, Reuters reported. The test this week mirrored the Canadian bank’s US$150 million offering of a one-year floating-rate Yankee certificate of deposit. The platform was built over more than a year using Quorum, a type of open-source blockchain that JPMorgan has developed in-house and is in discussions to spin off.
2 min read · 20 April 2018
Brazil’s state-controlled oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA this week received three binding bids for its gas pipeline network company Transportadora Associada de Gás SA (TAG), sources told Reuters. The bidding groups include one led by Australia’s Macquarie Group and joined by Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, among others. All bids were higher than the US$5.2 billion Brookfield Asset Management paid in 2016 for another gas pipeline unit sold by Petrobras. Some of the proposals could be above US$7 billion.
2 min read · 20 April 2018
The venture capital firm aiming to bring more U.S. startups to Russia has raised a $200 million fund, hoping to use the fresh pool of money to help Silicon Valley companies deliver their services to Russia’s biggest corporations and its millions of consumers.
2 min read · 19 April 2018
Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec held a 7.8 percent stake in Kinder Morgan Canada Ltd at the end of last year, according to its annual report, making it the largest independent shareholder of the pipeline company at the centre of a contentious expansion project, Reuters reported. The Caisse said it acquired the stake in the period following Kinder Morgan Canada’s initial public offering last May and before it announced plans to reduce its carbon footprint by 25 percent per dollar invested last October. Kinder Morgan is at the centre of an escalating crisis over a planned $7.4 billion Trans Mountain oil pipeline project that will almost triple the capacity of its line from Alberta to British Columbia.
2 min read · 19 April 2018
GrafTech International Ltd raised US$525 million in its U.S. initial public offering on Wednesday, a source familiar with the matter said, netting owner Brookfield Asset Management a smaller-than-expected windfall, Reuters reported. GrafTech manufactures graphite electrodes used in the production of steel. The underwhelming IPO investor reception illustrates that concerns about the volatility of its business persist. Brookfield acquired GrafTech for around US$1.3 billion, including debt, in 2015, and will receive all of the net proceeds from the IPO.
1 min read · 19 April 2018
Uber Technologies Inc has picked VMware Inc’s (VMW.N) Zane Rowe as the top candidate for chief financial officer to lead preparations for the ride-hailing company’s initial public offering in 2019, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.
1 min read · 19 April 2018
U.S. activist hedge fund Blue Harbour Group LP CEO Cliff Robbins told a conference in New York this week that Canadian business information management software company Open Text Corp could be acquired, Reuters reported. “There is potential for a strategic sale down the road,” Robbins said, adding that there has been significant consolidation in the software sector. Blue Harbour owns a 3.49 percent stake in Waterloo-based Open Text.
1 min read · 17 April 2018
Westinghouse Electric, which filed for bankruptcy last year, is now “lean and mean and ready to get to work” on its projects to build nuclear reactors in India, U.S. energy secretary Rick Perry said this week. The show of support by Perry came after Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse’s bankruptcy filing had raised doubts about the proposed construction of six nuclear reactors in India’s Andhra Pradesh state. Westinghouse, owned by Japan’s Toshiba Corp which is to be bought by a unit of Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management, is one of the world’s leading suppliers of nuclear fuel and provides some form of service to 80 percent of the world’s 450 commercial reactors.
2 min read · 17 April 2018
U.S. private equity firm Vista Equity Partners Management has agreed to merge two U.S. education technology companies it owns, PowerSchool and PeopleAdmin, with an investment from Canadian buyout firm Onex Corp, valuing the combined business at close to US$3 billion, including debt, sources told Reuters. The deal represents Onex’s biggest investment in the education software sector to date. Last year it hired Laurence Goldberg, a former head of Barclays Plc’s technology, media and telecom investing banking business, to find more such deals.
2 min read · 16 April 2018
