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Mass PRIM Hires Albourne | Bumble Bee Preps for Bankruptcy | Athletes Team Up With Private Equity | Non-Profit Primes the Diversity Pipeline
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Good day! I hope everyone had a great weekend! In recent years, I’ve heard more discussion among limited partners about the role of operational due diligence in selecting managers. This morning we have news of one LP that has hired a consulting firm dedicated exclusively to operational diligence and monitoring of the pension’s investment managers. Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management Board has tapped Albourne Partners for the job, which represents a new consulting role for the system.
Meanwhile, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy has the scoop on private equity-backed Bumble Bee Foods' bankruptcy plans, and WSJ Pro's Isaac Taylor profiles Girls Who Invest, a non-profit focused on preparing more young women for careers in asset management. Finally, our own Ted Bunker weighs in on what may lie ahead for Bain Capital now that Deval Patrick has thrown his hat into the presidential race.
Now on to today's news...
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Mass PRIM Hires Albourne for Operational Oversight
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The eastern face of the historic Massachusetts State House, which sits atop Beacon Hill in downtown Boston. PHOTO: STEVEN SENNE/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Massachusetts’ largest state pension manager is focusing its gaze more intently on how its investment managers operate their firms, Laura Kreutzer reports for WSJ Pro Private Equity. The Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management Board, which managed some $76 billion of assets as of Sept. 30, has hired Albourne Partners Ltd. as its first adviser dedicated to operational due diligence and oversight.
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NFL, MLB Players Tie Up With Private Equity
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Professional football and baseball players have long made money from their likenesses in videogames and on trading cards. Now they are teaming up with a private-equity firm in an unprecedented deal to amp up that revenue and invest it. The players associations of the National Football League and Major League Baseball have struck a deal with RedBird Capital Partners to form a new company called OneTeam Partners LLC, which will be centered around the management of the players’ portrayals, the parties said.
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Canned Tuna Maker Bumble Bee Preps for Bankruptcy Filing
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Bumble Bee Foods LLC is preparing to file for bankruptcy within days over mounting legal expenses stemming from its involvement in a conspiracy to fix prices on canned tuna, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy's Alexander Gladstone reports, citing people familiar with the matter. The San Diego-based company, owned by London-based private-equity firm Lion Capital, is expected to file a chapter 11 petition shortly and will put itself up for sale, the people said. Bumble Bee didn’t respond to a request for comment. Lion Capital, which bought the company in 2010 for $980 million, also didn’t immediately respond.
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Nonprofit Plants Seeds for More Gender-Diverse Talent Pipeline
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Nonprofit group Girls Who Invest aims to narrow the gender gap in the asset management world by providing training and internship opportunities to young women while they are still in college, typically following their sophomore year, as Isaac Taylor writes for WSJ Pro Private Equity. Girls Who Invest’s ultimate goal is to see women manage 30% of the world’s investable assets by the year 2030.
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Bunker’s Take: Bain Capital Headed for Second Act as Political Football
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Deval Patrick, the former governor of Massachusetts, hasn’t done private-equity firm Bain Capital any favors by entering the Democratic presidential race. First, he is exiting his role as co-head of the Boston-based firm’s Double Impact fund, which he helped start, just as it is raising its sophomore pool. But Mr. Patrick also has virtually guaranteed his former employer will take center stage as the debate over reining in billionaires heats up on the hustings. Read more in Bunker's Take.
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93%
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The proportion of investors who said private equity had met or exceeded expectations through June, a Preqin Ltd. survey shows.
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The Netherlands may be better known for its Amsterdam canals like this one than the expanding Action Dutch retail chain, which reached a valuation of more than €10 billion last week. PHOTO: PAULO AMORIM/ZUMA PRESS
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Partners Group has agreed to sell its significant minority stake in rapidly expanding Dutch discount retailer Action to Hellman & Friedman at an enterprise value of €10.25 billion ($11.3 billion). That is more than 78 times the reported €130 million value of the company in 2011, when Partners and 3i Group PLC initially invested in the chain. On Thursday, 3i said it was selling an interest in Action held by its aging EuroFund V to newer 3i-managed entities and new investors. The business has grown to more than 1,300 stores and had €4.2 billion in revenue last year, according to its website.
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Private equity-backed Hylete Inc., a San Diego-based fitness apparel company, has postponed its initial public offering, citing "current unfavorable market conditions and the lack of institutional support for IPOs at this time," Dow Jones Newswires reported Friday. The direct-to-consumer seller had planned to sell 1.67 million shares for $8 to $10 each. It is backed by Steelpoint Capital Partners and Black Oak Capital Partners, which first invested in the company in 2016.
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Cerberus Capital Management LP has acquired an 80% stake in used-car dealer Off Lease Only LLC. Off Lease Only founders Mark and Eileen Fischer will maintain a 20% ownership stake. With four Florida retail locations and an online platform, the company is one of the largest independent used-car dealers in the U.S., according to a press release.
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Guardian Capital Partners has invested in WS Acquisition LLC alongside its senior management. The Eugene, Ore.-based company makes temporary and emergency shelters and personal protective equipment for firefighters.
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Equistone Partners Europe has agreed to acquire Brussels-based Amadys NV, a provider of network equipment to utilities, from Vectis Private Equity. The Belgian firm first invested in the business in 2013.
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New York-based midmarket firm Dominus Capital said it has completed its investment in Surface Preparation Technologies, a company that provides rumble strips and other roadway safety products.
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Our new 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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HealthCare Royalty Partners has raised at least $809 million so far for HealthCare Royalty Partners IV LP and its affiliated funds, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. The firm backs health-care royalty deals as well as credit deals for commercial-stage or near-commercial-stage life sciences companies. Its previous fund closed with $1.5 billion in 2014.
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Private-equity firm H.I.G. Capital is joining the race to raise co-investment funds, aiming to collect at least $500 million for a new pool targeting the strategy, a regulatory filing shows. The Miami-based firm, whose private-equity operations focus on control investments, said it had yet to register a commitment for the H.I.G. Private Equity Co-Investment Fund LP. On Thursday, HarbourVest Partners closed a $3 billion co-investment fund that it raised in about a year.
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Taylor Swift performed at a Singles’ Day promotion in Shanghai this month. PHOTO: WU WENDA/ZUMA PRESS
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Private-equity backed Big Machine Label Group, an independent recording label, on Friday denied singer Taylor Swift’s complaints that the company had said she couldn’t perform music it owned on the American Music Awards or had interfered with her Netflix documentary. The label said that since celebrity talent manager Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings LLC, backed by Carlyle Group LP, took over it has honored her requests for licensing her catalog.
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EP Energy Corp.’s senior bondholders, which include Fidelity Management & Research Co., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Pacific Investment Management Co., are making a push for control of the bankrupt company, challenging its restructuring proposal with an alternative that would leave a sliver of equity to junior creditors, which include Apollo Global Management Inc. and Elliott Management Corp.
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The epic growth in drilling using hydraulic fracturing techniques that recently turned the U.S. into a net exporter of petroleum products has spawned entirely new industries. One of them is the supply of sand used in the “fracking” process that produces more than 60% of U.S. supply, the Journal’s Spencer Jakab writes. Amid the fracking boom in 2014 and 2015, sand was such a hot business that the combined market values of six firms wholly or partially dependent on the business reached a cumulative $18 billion. Today, those values have tumbled along with oil prices.
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The European Investment Bank said it would end financing for fossil-fuel energy projects from the end of 2021 onward, marking the latest blow to oil-and-gas companies as the European Union readies for its version of the Green New Deal.
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Lazard Ltd. has formed a 10-member growth and venture banking team led by former Numis Corp. executives Garri Jones and Nick James. Both have been appointed as managing directors in the New York-based investment advisory firm’s U.K. investment banking business, with a focus on the needs of the private growth-equity and venture-capital markets.
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LEAVE THIS BOX EMPTY
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