Robert Venes

3i and Star Capital Partners have sold Swiss aircraft maintenance company SR Technics to a consortium of investors from the United Arab Emirates for €1 bn.

Permira, Europe’s largest buyout firm, is planning to float portfolio company Hogg Robinson later this month with an expected market cap of £400m to £450m.

The Swedish private equity firm has closed its fourth venture capital fund focusing on ICT and healthcare investments in the Nordic region.

Bridgepoint has made more than twice its money in the £86m secondary buyout of NES, a specialist recruitment firm, to Graphite Capital.

The US private equity firm is reported to be lining up a bid for United Biscuits, the maker of McVities Biscuits and Jaffa Cakes in the UK. The move will pit the firm against Premier Foods, a UK food group.

Four buyout firms are reported to have reached second round bids for government-owned Dutch publisher Sdu.

Electra Partners Europe has opened an Italian office while rebranding as Cognetas a year after its formal separation from Electra Investment Trust in 2005.

US and European venture capital firm Fidelity Ventures is looking within its own and portfolio companies’ internal processes as it hunts for vertical software targets. By Robert Venes.

Tom Hunter and Bank of Scotland’s £1.1bn bid for care homes builder McCarthy & Stone has been successful, with Permira and Barclays Capital opting not to increase their offer.

The London arm of Fidelity Ventures, an early-stage technology venture capital firm, has hired Baruk Pilo from the European M&A unit of Cisco Systems.