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Clearlake's Feliciano Gives Princeton $20 Million | Questa Banks $348 Million | Tacit Joins Gym Play
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Good Thursday to all. Never one to miss a trend, Richard Branson has climbed aboard the SPAC express. He joins executives from any number of private-equity firms already in the mix, who now include two from Apollo Global Management. They popped up in a filing Wednesday barely 10 minutes after the one tied to the fabled British entrepreneur. Apollo’s SPAC aims to raise $750 million, putting it among the heavy hitters, while Mr. Branson’s blank-check company is looking for $400 million, or about the average size of such IPOs this year, according to SPAC Research data. We’re still a bit bemused by the trend, which the data provider says has seen 99 blank-check companies file to raise $39.1 billion in aggregate so far in 2020. In all of last year, just $13.6 billion was raised by 59 SPACs.
But SPACs aren’t the only vehicles raising capital, as Brian Gormley reports for WSJ Pro Venture Capital. He has details on the latest medical-focused growth fund collected by Questa Capital. Also, Tacit Capital has joined with lenders in a bid to bring a sports club operator out of bankruptcy, as WSJ Pro Bankruptcy's Aisha Al-Muslim reports. Meanwhile, our Laura Cooper provides a look at how a principal at another private-equity firm, Clearlake Capital’s José Feliciano and his wife, Kwanza Jones, are dishing out some of their own hard-won cash. Princeton University is the beneficiary. For these stories and much more, please read on...
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Kwanza Jones and her husband, José Feliciano, a co-founder and managing partner at Clearlake Capital Group, are donating $20 million to their alma mater, Princeton University. PHOTO: KWANZA JONES & JOSE E. FELICIANO SUPERCHARGED INITIATIVE
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Clearlake Capital Group co-founder José Feliciano and his wife, Kwanza Jones, have made a $20 million donation to Princeton University, enabling their alma mater to increase the size of its student body. The gift—the largest contribution to the Ivy League school from Black and Latino donors—will help finance the construction of two adjoining dormitories in a new residential college Princeton is building, according to the school. The dorms will be named in their honor and will be the first buildings at the university named after Black and Latino benefactors.
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Questa Capital Management has raised $348 million for its second medical growth-equity fund after backing successful companies such as EPIX Therapeutics Inc. with its debut partnership, Brian Gormley reports for WSJ Pro Venture Capital. Questa held a final closing on its $199 million first fund in 2018 and invested that pool in nine companies, including EPIX, a designer and manufacturer of medical-device treatments for irregular heartbeats, such as atrial fibrillation, that was acquired by Medtronic PLC in early 2019.
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The owner of New York Sports Clubs and Lucille Roberts gyms is preparing to sell itself out of bankruptcy to lenders and private-equity firm Tacit Capital LLC, which have agreed to supply the financing needed to keep the fitness chains open, Aisha Al-Muslim reports for WSJ Pro Bankruptcy. Town Sports International Holdings Inc. said in a bankruptcy-court hearing on Wednesday it is working out a deal with the lenders and Tacit for them to serve as the lead bidder, or stalking horse, for the assets. The offer would come in the form of debt forgiveness of no more than $85 million, setting a minimum price for other bidders to beat.
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$253.93
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The closing price of shares in software company Snowflake Inc. in its first day of trading, more than double its IPO price of $120 and giving the Silicon Valley company a market value of $70.4 billion, a nearly sixfold gain since February.
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Competitive cyclist Lisa Kromm warms up using the Zwift online system in Karlsruhe, Germany. PHOTO: HELGE PRANG/ZUMA PRESS
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KKR & Co. led a $450 million Series C funding round for online fitness platform Zwift that elevated the growth-stage company to unicorn status with a valuation of more than $1 billion, Colin Kellaher reports for Dow Jones Newswires. The deal also brought in Permira as a new backer for the Long Beach, Calif. company, along with Amazon's venture-capital fund Amazon Alexa Fund and Specialized Bicycle Components' venture fund. A specific valuation wasn't disclosed, but a Zwift representative said it exceeded $1 billion. Existing investors True, Highland Europe, Novator
and Causeway Media also participated, Zwift said.
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Carlyle Group is acquiring a majority interest in disinfectant sprayer maker Victory Innovations Co., whose business has grown dramatically since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. Founded in 2014 by chief executive Chris Gurreri, Kyle Wheaton and Cliff Wright, the Minneapolis-based company makes electrostatic sprayers that are used in offices, hospitals, schools and airlines, among other settings. The three plan to use the investment to expand internationally. Carlyle is investing through its $18.5 billion Carlyle Partners VII fund.
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Unity Software Inc., backed by investors that include Silver Lake, Sequoia Capital and D1 Capital Partners, raised its price range for an initial public offering of shares, pushing the expected maximum to $48 each from $42, a regulatory filing shows. The San Francisco maker of programs used by digital game developers plans to sell at least 25 million shares, which would raise about $1.2 billion at the maximum value, the document shows. Sequoia is the company’s largest owner with nearly 57.5 million shares, or about 24%, and doesn’t plan to sell any in the IPO. Silver Lake owns about 18%, or more than 43.3 million shares and D1 has a 5.3% stake.
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Print publisher LSC Communications Inc., which entered chapter 11 bankruptcy in April, has agreed to be acquired by Atlas Holdings in a deal that is supported by some secured creditors, the Chicago company said. With the cash and credit deal, the company said it expects to continue its business of printing books, magazines and catalogs. The deal is subject to bankruptcy court approval. A failed merger agreement valued the publicly traded company at about $1.4 billion but was blocked by the Justice Department on
antitrust grounds.
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Pamlico Capital has completed a growth investment in ISAAC Instruments Inc., which provides technology used to help manage truck fleets. Jacques DeLarochelliere, David Brillon and Jean-Sebastien Bouchard, the company’s co-founders, will maintain significant ownership in ISAAC and will continue to run the company with its current management team, according to a news release.
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Cannae Holdings Inc. and Thomas H. Lee Partners have acquired stakes of 20% each in residential mortgage market software provider Optimal Blue LLC through a deal that saw private-equity firm GTCR sell the Plano, Texas-based company to financial software maker Black Knight Inc. The deal valued Optimal Blue at about $1.8 billion. Black Knight and its co-investors plan to combine the company with its Compass Analytics business.
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GI Partners has agreed to acquire cybersecurity company Sectigo Ltd. from Francisco Partners, which acquired the business as a carveout from Comodo Group in 2017. The Roseland, N.J.-based company provides identity management and security certifications.
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Spectrum Equity has led a financing round for PWNHealth LLC, joined by the venture investment arm of Blue Cross Blue Shield health insurers. Created through a carveout financed by EDG Partners in 2015, the New York-based company provides diagnostic and telehealth services.
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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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KKR & Co.-owned electronic sensor systems maker Hensoldt AG has priced a planned initial public offering of shares at €12 to €16 (roughly equivalent to $14.22 and $18.96) each, giving it an enterprise value of as much as €2.61 billion ($3.09 billion), according to a notice from the company. The IPO began Wednesday.
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KKR & Co. likely scored a windfall from selling its minority stake in online health and beauty retailer THG Holdings PLC, which does business as the Hut Group, in its initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange, saying Wednesday that its shares had priced at 500 pence (the equivalent of about $6.44) each, Elisângela Mendonça reports for sister publication Private Equity News in London. The deal gave the company a market value of £5.4 billion (about $7 billion), according to a company notice. KKR sold its minority stake for £448 million just six years after initially investing £100 million in the Manchester, England-based e-commerce business. An August regulatory filing
indicated KKR held shares that gave it 17.8% of the voting rights in the company.
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Virgin Group founder Richard Branson on a deck of a new cruise liner in February, before the coronavirus pandemic took hold. PHOTO: SIMON DAWSON / REUTERS
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A special purpose acquisition company set up by entrepreneur Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Group, plans to raise $400 million to finance the purchase of a company that does business in one of the Virgin Group’s core business areas, which include travel and leisure, financial services, health and wellness, technology and internet-enabled, music and entertainment, media and mobile and renewable energy/resource efficiency, a regulatory filing shows. The blank check company, VG Acquisition Corp., is led by Josh Bayliss, Virgin Group’s chief executive, as CEO and Evan Lovell as chief financial officer. He is Virgin Group’s chief
investment officer.
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A blank-check company led by Apollo Global Management Inc. executives plans to raise $750 million through an initial public offering with a goal of acquiring a private company and taking it public, a regulatory filing shows. Apollo Strategic Growth Capital, the special purpose acquisition company, aims to focus on businesses with high growth potential and expects to see many candidates through the investment apparatus of AGM’s $73 billion private-equity operations. The SPAC is led by Chief Executive Sanjay Patel, an AGM senior partner and chairman international of private equity, and Executive Chairman Scott Kleinman, a member of AGM’s executive committee
and the firm’s co-president.
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A Sienna Capital-backed blank check company, Avanti Acquisition Corp., aims to raise $500 million through an initial public offering to provide capital for the special purpose acquisition company to buy a private business and take it public, a regulatory filing shows. The SPAC is also backed by NNS Group, the family office of Nassef Sawiris. The company is focusing its acquisition efforts on European businesses with strong connections to the U.S. and international reach, the filing shows. Mr. Sawiris serves as the company’s chairman and chief executive.
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Ardian has collected €2 billion (equivalent to about $2.37 billion) for its fifth growth fund, doubling the amount raised by its predecessor vehicle only six months earlier, according to a news release. Ardian Expansion Fund V received half of its commitments from investors in the Paris-based firm’s previous Expansion funds, while many of the new investors hail from Asia and the Middle East. Led by François Jerphagnon, head of Ardian Expansion, the new fund is closed to new investors and has made two investments so far, including digital storage technology provider Swissbit in May and French insurance broker Finaxy in July.
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Middle market-focused private credit firm Antares Capital’s Antares Capital Advisers unit has raised about $3 billion for its first senior loan fund, which closed to new investors on Monday. The Chicago firm began raising money for the fund in December with a goal of bringing in about $1.5 billion, according to a news release. Antares intends to use the fund to acquire sponsor-backed senior secured loans from private-equity owned middle-market businesses in the U.S. and Canada.
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H.I.G. Capital has hired Andrew Liau as co-head of its infrastructure investing team alongside Ed Pallesen. Mr. Liau is based in London and will lead the group’s efforts in Europe, while Mr. Pallesen works from New York and focuses on the Americas for the Miami-based private-equity firm. Mr. Liau was previously a senior managing director in Ardian’s infrastructure group.
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Guardian Capital Partners has promoted Evan Fisher to vice president from senior associate. He joined the firm in that role last year from fellow lower midmarket firm MPE Partners.
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StepStone Group Inc. priced its initial public offering of shares above its expected range at $18 each, raising at least $315 million before including an over allotment of 2.625 million shares made available to underwriters. The New York private-equity firm, the first to go public since Hamilton Lane Inc. in 2017, began trading Wednesday on the Nasdaq stock market under the STEP ticker. The firm manages $66 billion and advises on $226 billion in assets.
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Investor Elliott Management Corp.’s Travelport Worldwide Ltd. is nearing a restructuring settlement that would unwind a disputed $1 billion shareholder rescue package and end a standoff with some of Wall Street’s biggest debt buyers, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy's Andrew Scurria writes, citing people familiar with the matter. The settlement, if completed, would cool tensions between Travelport’s top lenders and its private-equity backers, Elliott and Siris Capital Group, resolving one of the highest-profile fights to break out between investors in companies hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic.
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Venture capital-backed database software company Snowflake Inc. saw its shares skyrocket in their first day of trading even after raising its expected price before Wednesday’s initial public offering at $120 each, Dave Sebastian and Corrie Driebusch report for The Wall Street Journal. The shares more than doubled in early trading to push the San Mateo, Calif.-based company’s market value to $67.9 billion, or more than five times its valuation in February. Backers of the cloud-based software provider before the IPO included Sequoia Capital’s third growth fund, Sutter Hill Ventures, Redpoint Ventures and Altimeter Partners, a regulatory filing shows.
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