Almost a year after the final close of its first fund, European private equity firm Syntaxis Capital has announced the first close on its second fund, SMF II. At € 140 million, the close is more than half of the fund’s target value of € 250 million. Anchoring the fund was the European Bank for [...]

London’s AnaCap Financial Partners has agreed to acquire Banco Popolare Ceská Republika a.s. The Czech bank is a subsidiary of Verona-based Banco Popolare. AnaCap finds the transaction attractive due to the potential growth and expansion of financial service in the country. Household debt in the Czech Republic is very low as is the amount of [...]

After revealing in mid-November plans to sell a majority stake in Israeli investment firm Psagot, York Capital announced it has inked a deal with Apax Partners to go ahead with the transaction. Apax will acquire a 76% stake in Psagot at a cost estimated to be near USD 822 million. Los Angeles-based Markstone Capital Group [...]

A COMPANY, a German media distribution firm, has reached a deal to acquire a majority share of Budapest Film. A COMPANY already has a healthy relationship with the Hungarian film distributor since they have jointly controlled Filmklik, a VOD platform they hope to release in Europe once the acquisition is complete. Budapest Film is also [...]

Following a preliminary agreement reached in November, the Carlyle Group has announced the completion of their transaction to acquire a 40% stake in Medical Park HG. Medical Park partners Ethem Sancak and Muharrem Usta retain the remaining 60% of the company. Carlyle’s investment in the Turkish health care company, the second-largest of its kind in [...]

A proposal to establish the Kazakhstan Capital Restructuring Fund has passed structure review and is now slated for final approval consideration with the EBRD Board in February of next year. The proposed fund would be established with an EBRD commitment of an amount between €45 to €60 million, with Kazyna Capital Management and other potential [...]

CapMan, the Nordic alternative asset firm based in Helsinki, has reached a deal enabling it to fully divest from Inflight Service Intressenter AB. CapMan’s 67% stake in the Swedish travel service company will be sold to Triton for an undisclosed amount. CapMan acquired Inflight Service in 2005 and with the divestiture, is very pleased with [...]

Fresh from a spin-off from Time Warner, AOL’s Tim Armstrong is looking to sell the ICQ instant-messaging service for a possible USD 200 million to USD 300 million. Digital Sky Technologies, the global internet holding company, is currently engaged in negotiations with AOL though they are still in the early stages. Mirabilis, the parent company [...]

Following a September 2009 announcement regarding plans for an initial public offering, Russia’s Human Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) has become the first Russian company to hold an IPO in over a year. The USD 4.6 million offering was made via the MICEX Stock Exchange, in the Innovation and Growth Companies sector. 15 million shares were [...]

Emerging market investor Actis recently announced the final close of its USD 750 million Actis Infrastructure 2 fund. The fund fell short of its USD 1.25 billion target after anchor investor CDC Group reduced their USD 750 million commitment to USD 500 million. The U.K.-backed CDC had also committed USD 167 million to seeding infrastructure [...]

Swiss telecom company Trivon Group has reached a deal with Effortel to acquire MediaSeti, a Russian wireless broadband operator. The acquisition strengthens Trivon’s Russian presence, adding to its current Virgin Connect operations in Russia. Though both parties agreed to keep transaction details private, the deal has been estimated to be near RU 250 million. Trivon [...]

After a two-year legal battle between PPF Investments and Oleg Deripaska’s Basic Element, an arbitration court has ruled in favour of PPF regarding rule changes designed to hamper its involvement with Russian insurance company Ingosstrakh. As a minority investors, PPF was subjected to new rules for Ingosstrakh board members which it believed was both discriminatory [...]

Pending project approval, VTB Georgia is poised to receive a USD 7.3 million equity investment from the EBRD. The investment is aimed at helping VTB Georgia remain compliant with government regulation while also realizing growth through continued lending within the Georgian economy. VTB Georgia has already received the necessary technical assistance and training needed to [...]

Austrian car rental company LaudaMotion has said goodbye to its namesake, former F1 champion Niki Lauda, after the majority owner decided to sell his stake in the company. The 51% share was acquired by Lauda’a partner, Stefan Miklauz, under an amicable agreement reached earlier this year. In announcing his decision Mr. Lauda indicated his pleasure [...]

Citing the poor performance of the East Capital Bering Funds, East Capital Explorer AB announced in late September a plan to make additional investments in the two funds. The Bering Russia Fund received €20 million while the Bering Balkan Fund received €10 million. With the investments complete East Capital Explorer reports €42.1 million available for [...]

Quintura reports the internet domain name russia.com was recently sold through Sedo, the one-stop-shop for registration, trading, brokering and parking of domain names and web sites. An unknown buyer paid USD 1.5 million for the domain which was originally registered by NewMedia Holdings in 1995 and licensed to Seattle-based Paley Media. In addition to russia.com, [...]

VEM, the parent company of Ratiopharm, has directed Commerzbank and BNP Paribas to put together staple financing in support of potential Ratiopharm bidders. VEM put the German pharmaceutical producer on the auction block earlier this year in an attempt to raise capital to pay down debts. Ludwig Merckle would like to see Ratiopharm sold as [...]

German car maker Daimler appears to be working on a deal with Troika Dialog to buy an additional 15% of Kamaz, the financially troubled Russian truck manufacturer. If Daimler, which already owns 10% of Kamaz, can work out a deal with an acceptable price it would then own a blocking share of 25% and be [...]

WomanJournal.ru and Passion.ru, two of Russia’s many websites targeting woman, will merge through an agreement recently reached between the two site’s individual owners. The deal calls for Passion.ru’s Evgeny and Svetlana Vysokovskiy to receive a stake of less than 50% and two Board seats at Milanor, the owner of WomanJournal.ru. The parties hope the merger [...]

Russia’s leading internet portal, Mail.ru, has announced plans to acquire online gaming giant Astrum Online and merge the two companies. Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) recently gave Naspers, which owns a 43% stake in Mail.ru, the go-ahead to acquire between 38% and 100% of Astrum from majority shareholder Digital Sky Technologies. It’s unclear what the [...]