Private Equity
Canada’s Nemaska Lithium Inc is in talks with U.S. private equity firm Orion Mine Finance Group on a lithium streaming deal, sources told Reuters. Nemaska Lithium, which is developing a lithium mine and processing plant in Québec to meet growing demand for the material used in rechargeable batteries, said last week it was negotiating a US$150 million streaming deal. Orion may also provide debt financing. Separately, the company said this week Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp will buy a stake of up to 9.9 percent and invest up to $99.1 million via a private placement.
2 min read · 06 April 2018
Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp will buy up to 9.9 percent stake in Canada-based Nemaska Lithium Inc and invest up to $99.1 million through a private placement as part of the agreement, Reuters reported. The investment, which SoftBank said was its first in the lithium industry, will be used to fund the construction and commissioning of Nemaska’s Whabouchi Mine in Québec and its Shawinigan plant. The investment comes at a time when lithium batteries are increasingly being installed in electric cars, including Tesla Inc's top-of-the-line Model X and General Motors Co's modestly-priced Chevy Bolt.
2 min read · 06 April 2018
Mergers and acquisitions among Canadian companies are expected to pick up pace after a sluggish first quarter, driven by non-resource deals and a rebound in outbound transactions as pension funds and private equity firms put massive pools of capital to work, M&A advisers told Reuters. Canadian M&A activity in the first quarter of the year dropped to US$54.2 billion, down 37 percent compared with a year ago, data from Thomson Reuters showed this week, weighed down by lower energy deals which were the biggest driver of 2017 activity.
2 min read · 05 April 2018
U.S. graphite electrode maker GrafTech International Ltd said this week it could raise up to US$907 million ($1.16 billion) in what could be the largest initial public offering in the steel sector in a decade, Reuters reported. The offering of 37.8 million shares is expected to be priced between US$21 and US$24 per unit. The shares are being offered by GrafTech’s sole shareholder — Brookfield Business Partners LP, the listed vehicle of Toronto-based Brookfield Asset Management's private equity group. The group acquired Independence, Ohio-based GrafTech in 2015.
1 min read · 04 April 2018
Shares of Callidus Capital Corp, the Toronto specialty lending company owned by Canadian private equity firm Catalyst Capital Group, plunged to an all-time low this week after it reported a fourth-quarter and annual loss, Reuters reported. This resulted in a sharp drop in share values. The decline comes after more than a year of Catalyst’s attempts to sell Callidus to a private buyer, saying last year it was targeting a price of $18 to $22 a share. Catalyst and Callidus head Newton Glassman said that the effort to take the company private continues, with “numerous parties” still part of the process.
2 min read · 03 April 2018
Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Canada’s third-biggest public pension plan, more than doubled its 2017 net return from investments compared with the year before, boosted by strong returns in private equity and infrastructure, Reuters reported. Strong performances from those asset classes helped the fund increase the value of its net assets to $189.5 billion at the end of 2017. Ontario Teachers' also said Chief Investment Officer Bjarne Graven Larsen, who joined the fund in January 2016 and has steered its investment strategy since then, had resigned and planned to return to Denmark.
2 min read · 03 April 2018
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday charged two co-founders of Centra Tech with orchestrating a fraudulent initial coin offering that raised more than $32 million from thousands of investors last year, Reuters reported.
1 min read · 03 April 2018
Private equity firm Lone Star, a majority shareholder in Poland's GTC is considering selling its 61.13 percent stake in the Warsaw-listed real-estate developer to a strategic or financial investor, Reuters reported.
1 min read · 03 April 2018
Transcontinental Inc said it would buy the U.S. packaging business of Coveris Holdings SA for about $1.70 billion (US$1.32 billion) as the Canadian publisher looks to join other top North American companies in the flexible packaging space, Reuters reported. As part of the deal, Transcontinental will take control of privately held Coveris Americas’ 21 production facilities that make rollstock, bags and pouches, shrink films and labels, among others. Luxembourg's Coveris Holdings is a portfolio company of U.S. private equity firm Sun Capital Partners. It was formed in 2013 through a merger of five packaging businesses.
2 min read · 02 April 2018
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd said on Monday it would buy the remaining shares of Ele.me, a major platform in China’s food delivery market, as it competes with Tencent Holdings Ltd services for offline consumers, Reuters reported.
2 min read · 02 April 2018
