Ahmed Arafa

AAC Capital has booked a 3.8x return on its investment in restaurant chain TGI Friday’s UK, which it made while still captive at ABN AMRO.

Research suggests listed SMEs currently offer a ‘compelling’ opportunity for private equity-backed acquisitions, due to a combination of continually low valuations and increasingly available debt.

The emerging markets investor has purchased a credit card processor as it seeks to consolidate the rapidly growing electronic payments market in Africa.

In the first exit from Fund II, the lower mid-market investor has sold Teaching Personnel to Graphite Capital for £45m.

Andreas Boesenberg has left alternatives firm Wermuth Asset Management to join the private equity arm of Russian financial services giant VTB Group.

More private equity capital was raised in the first quarter of 2010 than throughout the whole of 2009, according to a GVCA report.

The US development finance institution has backed Karachi-based JS Private Equity as it raises its second fund.

With plenty of institutional money ‘on the sidelines’, the exit environment for private equity firms in the desert kingdom is improving, according to Dubai-based Al Masah Capital.

Prometheus Capital is led by Levan Vasadze, a former vice president of Sistema, Russia’s largest public diversified financial corporation.

The UK mid-market investor was for the second year in succession the front-runner at the BVCA’s portfolio company management awards.