Oliver Smiddy

The Carlyle Group has sealed its seventh investment from its European Technology Partners II fund this year, acquiring Belgian emission monitoring business The Sniffers.

The Blackstone Group topped preliminary rankings for private equity activity this year based on the total value of deals done, while Goldman Sachs booked the most revenue from buyout advisory work.

Global M&A activity held firm in the face of economic turmoil this year - but private equity proved less robust, with the value of buyouts down 9 percent.

The Private Equity International Awards are the industry’s largest impartial awards, voted for entirely by readers.

UK-listed 3i Group has dipped its toe into Brazil for the first time since opening a São Paulo office in April, acquiring a minority stake in a cable TV operator Blue Interactive Group.

SVG Capital will commit to a broader range of managers in the future, as part of a strategy re-think that also includes a return of capital to investors.

Warren Hellman, the co-founder of US buyout firm Hellman & Friedman, has died at the age of 77 after a battle with leukemia.

Milton Berlinski (pictured), global head of financial sponsors at Goldman Sachs, is to retire this month. Pete Lyon has been promoted to co-head of the sponsors unit in the Americas as a result.

US mid-market buyout firm American Industrial Partners has taken just two months to raise its latest fund, smashing its target on the way to a $700m first and final close in the process.

Coller Capital has agreed the latest in a slew of banking-related secondaries this year sparked by the forthcoming Volcker rule, acquiring the in-house private equity arm of French bank Crédit Agricole.