Matilda Battersby

The private equity firm has agreed a £64m PIPE with Premier Foods, the UK-based owner of household food brands including Hovis, Cadbury and Bisto, which has been struggling under a £1.7bn debt mound. The investment will form part of a 1.5bn share offer intended to raise around £404m.

The venture firm established by the Rockefeller family now has more than $2.2bn under management.

‘Super angel’ investors the Rickman brothers have launched their first institutional fund for investment into technology in the UK. A second institutional fund is also being raised to make complementary investments into the same sector internationally.

The UK supermarket chain Somefield has been sold to fellow supermarket operator Co-Operative Group just three years after it was acquired by an Apax- and Barclays-led consortium for £1.8 billion. The deal was announced in July but has taken 6 months to complete.

UK-based clean technology-focused private equity firm Foresight Group has agreed two deals worth a combined €50m for 10 megawatts of solar projects in Italy using its European Solar Fund and bank debt.

Eastern European-focused financial advisor P&S East Growth is looking to raise more than €100m for its second Luxembourg-based private equity fund.

The European venture firm collected commitments from LPs in just three months for its latest early stage fund. It is the same size as its 2007 predecessor, which has been nearly fully deployed alongside a growth capital fund.

Creditors of Autodistribution, the debt-laden French car part distributor, have agreed to write down its debts in exchange for a €110m cash injection by private equity firms Towerbrook and InvestCorp.

UK-based private equity firm Dunedin has sold aircraft navigational aid manufacturer Fernau Avionics for £32 million two years after it acquired the firm.

The London-based private equity firm has cut its latest fund target from €6bn to €4bn as investor caution impacts on the fundraising environment.