Eastman Kodak Co. said on Monday it has reached a $793 million financing deal with bondholders that could take the one-time photography giant out of bankruptcy. The deal, which still needs bankruptcy court approval, will come in the form of new loans from Centerbridge Partners, GSO Capital Partners, UBS and JPMorgan Chase & Co, Kodak said in a statement. The financing is contingent on the company receiving at least $500 million for a patent portfolio it has been trying to sell for more than a year, Kodak said. The package should allow Kodak to emerge from bankruptcy in the first half of 2013, Antonio Perez, Kodak's chief executive, said in the statement.
2 min read · 13 November 2012
Chinese e-commerce firm 360buy has closed its latest round of financing, raising about $400 million that values the company at $7.3 billion, local media reported. The company, also known as Jingdong Mall, declined to provide financial details of the fundraising. The valuation of $7.3 billion is lower than the valuation 360buy achieved last April when it raised $1.5 billion from a slew of international investors, local media said. The latest round was participated in by Ontario Teachers' Pension Fund and the Tiger Fund, Reuters wrote.
2 min read · 13 November 2012
Blackstone Group is investing $1.2 billion in LLOG Exploration Company to strengthen the offshore oil producer's operations in Mexico, writes Reuters. Blackstone will invest from its two private equity funds, which aggregate over $19.3 billion of committed capital, including Blackstone Energy Partners.
1 min read · 13 November 2012
2 min read · 12 November 2012
U.S. private equity firm Advent International has raised 8.5 billion euros ($10.8 billion) for its latest fund, one of the largest pools of capital raised for buyouts since the financial crisis, Reuters reported Monday. Advent, whose deals include buying RBS's payment processing business WorldPay, raised more than the 7 billion euros it initially planned for in its seventh Global Private Equity Fund, making it the firm's biggest fund since it was founded in 1984. The new fund cements Boston-based Advent's position as one of the leading global buyouts firms and gives it capital to spend for the next five years on medium to large-sized companies worth between 200 million and 2 billion euros.
2 min read · 12 November 2012
Sharon McCollam, the former chief financial officer of Williams-Sonoma Inc., will come out of retirement to take over as finance chief at Best Buy Co Inc. at the end of the year, Reuters reported. Best Buy last month said its chief financial officer, Jim Muehlbauer, was leaving the company at the end of the fiscal year and that it was searching for a replacement.
2 min read · 12 November 2012
A South Korean court has approved the $1.1 billion sale of a near 30 percent stake in water purifier maker Woongjin Coway Co Ltd to domestic private equity fund MBK Partners, Reuters reported. The sale had been halted when Coway's largest shareholder Woongjin Holdings Co Ltd applied for court receivership in late September. MBK is buying a 28.4 percent stake from Woongjin Holdings and another 2.5 percent from other shareholders.
1 min read · 12 November 2012
Spotify is in the middle of a $100 million financing round that could value the music streaming company at just over $3 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported citing sources. The Journal said Spotify would raise the fresh capital from multiple investors including Goldman Sachs. The WSJ report did not name any other investors. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Accel Partners and others have invested about $189 million in the company in its prior financing rounds.
1 min read · 12 November 2012
EarlySense, an Israeli-U.S. developer of patient monitoring systems, has raised $15 million in a financing round led by Israeli fund Pitango Venture Capital. Existing investors that participated include JK&B, ProSeed VC Fund, Docor International Management and Bridge Investment Fund.
1 min read · 12 November 2012
Apollo Global Management LLC, the alternative asset manager headed by billionaire Leon Black, reported better-than-expected third-quarter earnings as the value of its assets soared and it sold stakes in some companies. Apollo said total economic net income (ENI) - a measure of profitability that takes into account the market value of its assets - was $434 million for the third quarter, compared with a $1.16 billion loss for the same period in 2011. This translated into ENI of 98 cents per share after taxes. The consensus view was for 73 cents, according to a poll of analysts by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
2 min read · 09 November 2012
