Yolanda Bobeldijk

The French insurer has sold its private equity arm to ACG Group, and also offloaded its interests in the direct private equity funds managed by Acto Capital.

The UK-based group is to buy Cerved, which was carved out from a group of Italian banks by Bain Capital and Clessidra in December 2008.

The European arm of Sun Capital Partners has bought UK-based Paragon for about £150m – giving Equistone its fifth exit of 2012 – and completed a bolt-on acquisition for portfolio company Albéa.

There will be very little structured auction activity in 2013 in the Nordic region, in what will be a similar year to 2012, says Nordic Capital’s Joakim Karlsson.

Firms operating in Southern Europe will likely be most concerned with their existing investments next year, says Trilantic’s founding partner Vittorio Pignatti.

The departure of the UK-based firm’s managing partner follows a disagreement with his fellow partners – but it won’t trigger a key-man clause.

The industry veteran, who recently stepped down from the Pension Insurance Corporation, has been appointed to chair London's largest local government pension scheme provider.

The firm, which closed its fourth fund on its €600m hard-cap, said maintaining relationships with investors – even when they are not investing in your fund, is the recipe to a successful fundraising.

One of the biggest challenges in Africa for private equity is finding talented managers; the growing influx of business students returning to the continent is a good sign for future investment.

The firm has already put one-fifth of its over-subscribed new fund to work with an eye to invest more in Asian secondaries than ever before.