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Insight Partners Raises $9.5 Billion | Partners Group Steps Up
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Another week down and I hope that you are all staying well wherever you may be hunkered down.
Starting today, small businesses across the country can apply for government-backed loans under the Small Business Administration’s $350 billion Paycheck Protection Program. But with many of the details still unclear around how lenders should implement the program, the universe of businesses that can actually access them may not be as large as initially intended. Private-equity-backed companies also are still hoping encouragement from certain lawmakers will convince the government to ease a rule that would limit their participation in the program.
In some news that is completely unrelated to the coronavirus pandemic, Insight Partners has raised what appears to be one of the largest private-equity funds of the year. The technology-focused firm has collected $9.5 billion for its newest offering, Laura Cooper writes for WSJ Pro Private Equity. Laura also has news of a new fund set up and partially funded by executives of Partners Group to support employees of portfolio companies that are adversely affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
Dive in for more on these stories and many more...
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Insight Partners, based in New York, raised $9.5 billion for its latest technology-focused fund. PHOTO: ANGELA WEISS/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
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Insight Partners has rounded up $9.5 billion for the firm’s newest and largest technology-focused fund, Laura Cooper reports for WSJ Pro Private Equity. Although the firm began marketing Insight Partners XI LP last September—before the coronavirus spread to many parts of the world—the fund closed earlier this week, unimpeded by the recent market turmoil. Insight already has backed two deals out of the new fund, including the acquisition of Veeam Software.
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Swiss private-equity firm Partners Group has set up a fund for employees of its portfolio companies affected by the novel coronavirus pandemic, in an attempt to help their workers weather the global health crisis, WSJ Pro's Laura Cooper reports. For at least six months, David Layton and André Frei, the firm’s co-chief executives, along with members of its board—including three co-founders of the firm and its chairman—will give up their salaries to make cash available for the portfolio-company employees' fund. Mr. Layton said by email the fund is expected to reach roughly $10 million.
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Lawyers and advisers who work on the largest corporate bankruptcies in the U.S. say they expect a deluge of debt restructurings and chapter 11 filings because of the massive disruption caused by the novel coronavirus, Jonathan Randles reports for WSJ Pro Bankruptcy. They have been inundated in recent days by calls and emails from lenders about cash-strapped companies drawing down loans and fielding inquiries about whether their clients can get money under the $2 trillion emergency stimulus package.
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$770 Million
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The value of mergers and acquisitions in the U.S. upstream energy sector during the first quarter of 2020, about 90% lower than the average for the first quarter in the sector from 2010 through 2019, according to a report by industry data analytics provider Enverus
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Technicians work atop a wind-energy generator. PHOTO: DORAL CHENOWETH III/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Ardian has acquired a wind-energy project in Finland from CPC Finland Oy, a unit of CPC Germania, a wind-power developer. The Paris-based firm made the investment in the Lakiakangas 1 project through its Ardian Infrastructure arm. The deal for the site, which includes 14 generator units and a production capacity of 57 megawatts, can be further developed to bring capacity to 90MW. CPC remains responsible for the technical and commercial asset management of the facility, according to a news release.
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Shale driller Alta Mesa Resources Inc. is trying to revive a bankruptcy sale of its assets by cutting the price by nearly a third, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy’s Andrew Scurria reports. The company had agreed to a $320 million deal with private-equity firm Bayou City Energy Management and energy company Mach Resources LLC, but last month's historic collapse in oil prices left the buyers unable to obtain needed financing. Now the company is aiming to lock in a $220 million price. The assets were valued at as much as $3.8 billion in 2018.
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Canada’s Public Sector Pension Investment Board has invested in Stone Point Capital-backed SitusAMC Holdings Corp., a New York company that provides technology-enabled services to the commercial real estate finance industry. The Ottawa-based fund, which is run from Montreal, manages the pensions of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the nation’s armed forces and federal Public Service. Greenwich, Conn.-based Stone Point specializes in investing in financial services companies.
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Ocean Link Partners Ltd. has bid $55 per American Depositary Share for online classified advertising company 58.com Inc. in China, or $27.50 per ordinary share, Beijing-based 58.com said Thursday, adding that the offer is preliminary and nonbinding. Ocean Link is a China-focused private-equity firm. The bid represents a 17.8% premium to Wednesday’s closing price of the depositary shares, which each represent two ordinary shares. The board of 58.com is evaluating the proposed deal.
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Harrison Street Real Estate Capital LLC, an investment firm that focuses on alternative real assets, has acquired two special-purpose commercial properties in the San Diego area. The Chicago firm partnered with BioScience Properties on the transaction, which involved laboratory and manufacturing facilities in Sorrento Mesa, Calif.
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Our add-on deal interactive tool allows you to sort and analyze volumes of add-on deal data compiled by WSJ Pro. View more.
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Metalmark Capital has sold rock salt miner Kissner Group Holdings LP to Stone Canyon Industries Holdings for about $2 billion. The former private-equity arm of Morgan Stanley initially invested in the Overland Park, Kan.-based company in May 2015. With its headquarters in Los Angeles, Stone Canyon acquires and builds industrial companies.
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Blue Wolf Capital Partners’ portfolio company Pharmaceutical Strategies Group has sold Pharmacy Benefit Management Institute to MJH Life Sciences. Pharmacy Benefit Management Institute offers research and education products and services for the pharmacy benefit management industry.
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Ironwood Capital, a debt investor based in Avon, Conn. said it has exited its investment in logistics and distribution company Performance Team, which has been purchased by A.P. Moller–Maersk. Ironwood made the subordinated debt investment in the Los Angeles-based company in 2018.
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Rubicon Technology Partners, a private-equity firm focused on investments in enterprise software companies, has raised $1.27 billion for Rubicon Technology Partners III LP, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Park Hill Group placed the fund, the filing indicated. Rubicon, which was formed in 2012, raised at least $536.8 million for its prior fund in 2017, according to a separate regulatory filing issued at the time.
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TrueBridge Capital Partners said it has raised $190 million for its second fund focused on direct investments. The final closing of TrueBridge Direct Fund II LP exceeded the $125 million the firm raised for its first direct investment fund in 2017. TrueBridge invests its direct funds in early-stage and growth-stage technology companies, primarily ones based in the U.S. It backs deals alongside venture-capital and growth-equity managers. TrueBridge was formed in 2007 by Edwin Poston and Mel Williams.
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Companies financed by private investors that want access to the federal government's emergency small-business lending program got a sympathetic hearing from Wall Street's top regulator on Thursday. Federal regulations can make it harder for companies with private-equity or venture backers to qualify as small businesses because they essentially consider all firms controlled by a single investor as one entity, Dave Michaels reports for The Wall Street Journal. Although industry lobbyists are pushing for waivers of the so-called affiliate rule, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton told small business advocates that he would "echo these issues" to officials at the Small Business Administration and the Treasury Department, which have authority over the rules.
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Private-equity investors should assume there will be no net distributions of capital from general partners until at least the fourth quarter of this year and expect cash flow from the investments to be roughly half of normal levels until the fourth quarter of next year, CEPRES said Thursday. On the valuations side, CEPRES said three-quarters of traditional industries will struggle to recover their full precrisis valuation, although technology and digitally oriented businesses will benefit from the crisis and surpass their past valuations. The advisory firm also said that investors should model their return expectations by using a 10% value at risk this year and in 2021, citing the effects of the
coronavirus pandemic.
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Fears the coronavirus' economic effects will cause limited partners to stop allocating to private equity are a bit exaggerated, new research from PitchBook Data Inc. suggests. Many LPs entered the year underallocated to private equity, or put in place flexible allocation guidelines after the financial crisis of 2007 through 2009. That should likely blunt the effect of the denominator effect, the data-provider suggests, in a report on the effects of coronavirus on private-markets investments, released Thursday. However, private-equity firms are experiencing major disruptions to fundraising due to the difficulty of in-person meetings with potential investors, PitchBook said.
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A joint venture formed by property mogul Sam Zell and private-equity firm Colony Capital has backed out of a deal to pump close to $200 million into Approach Resources Inc., the bankrupt West Texas oil-and-gas drilling company, amid a steep drop in oil prices, Soma Biswas reports for WSJ Pro Bankruptcy. The investors said the oil company had breached certain “material” conditions in their deal, according to court papers filed Thursday, with the details blacked out. Now the buyers want their escrowed deposit back as well as reimbursement for their expenses.
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