Toby Mitchenall
The C$52bn Canadian pension plan with an in-house private equity arm has followed in the footsteps of the Ontario’s Teachers’ Pension Plan and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board by crossing the pond to source deals.
Permira partner Veronica Eng has said ‘any manager worth its salt’ is taking a hard look at its portfolio companies and carefully broaching new investments amid today’s unprecedented financial climate. Phoenix CFO Steve Darrington, meanwhile, expects unsettled investors to flock to smaller managers.
The European private equity firm has backed the management buyout of LEXSI, a French provider of IT security services, for an undisclosed amount.
Having passed the halfway mark on fundraising for its new Pan-African fund, its largest ever focused on the region, the mid-market investor is hoping to have invested between $80m and $100m by the end of the year.
The Tchenguiz family, along with three international development funds are the cornerstone investors in The Evolution One Fund, which has raised 40 percent of its targeted R1bn total.
Along with those of Stanford and British Columbia, Harvard University’s $37bn endowment has scored top marks for sustainable investment. Harvard's endowment, an active private equity LP, returned 8.6 percent for the fiscal year ended 30 June.
The global mid-market buyout group has upped its investments in buyout and infrastructure deals, despite a roughly 40 percent fall in the total value of its investments over the past five months. The firm’s realisations also slowed significantly.
The buyout giant has said ‘a number of market conditions’ caused its investment portfolio to lose $1.2bn in value in the first half of 2008, while the firm’s compensation costs for an expanding stable of employees grew by 80 percent.
As British bank Barclays snaps up Lehman’s core investment banking businesses, the fate of the bankrupt bank’s investment management division including its private equity and real estate portfolio has yet to be sealed.
The London- and Paris-based secondaries shop has closed its latest fund and is looking forward to the ‘attractive opportunity’ for the secondaries market caused by credit market dislocation.