James Taylor

The UK-based private equity group has formally launched its €2.4 billion offer for music company EMI, soon after closing its biggest ever fund. The offer also sets a deadline for any competing bids.

Shareholders in Alliance Boots have voted overwhelmingly in favour of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts’ £11.1 billion bid, despite continued complaints from trade union officials and trustees about the company’s pension deficit.

Candover has made a successful exit from its investment in Thule Group, a Swedish company that makes car accessories for equipment transport. The firm has generated an IRR of more than 40 percent from the sale to Nordic Capital, following a two and a half year buy-and-build programme.

Bridgepoint has won the $343 million auction for GDT, an aerospace component maker, generating a big return for previous owner Stirling Square Capital Partners.

Vision Capital, which specialises in buying portfolios of investments from other private equity firms, has recruited Andrew Hawkins from mid-market buyout firm Palamon Capital Partners as a managing director of the business.

Permira, a buyout firm with various retail interests in Spain, is closing in on another big retail asset in the country. The firm is also reportedly mulling a bid for a UK IT services group.

A new report suggests that senior management may prove the greatest bar to future public-to-private deals in the UK. The majority of senior executives at the UK’s biggest listed companies have no wish to go private – even though they accept their businesses would face fewer constraints away from the public markets.

Top executives in the UK’s biggest listed companies think private ownership means better rewards, less regulation and less public scrutiny – but more than 60 percent are still unwilling to take their companies private at any price.

Jupiter Asset Management, a UK fund manager recently bought out by management and TA Associates, has hit back at criticism of the £425 million “covenant-lite” loan it will use to finance the deal. The controversial structure, which was pioneered in the US but is now crossing over into Europe, removes many of the traditional protections for lenders.

August Equity has sold InterMed Holdings, an anaesthesia equipment maker, to US healthcare specialist Altaris Capital Partners. The UK mid-market firm has been able to revive the fortunes of the company after a difficult start to its period of ownership.