KKR sells remaining stake in Alliance Boots

According to Yahoo Finance, KKR today announced the sale of its remaining stake in Alliance Boots to Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc., the new holding company of Walgreen & Co., following the exercise by Walgreens of the call option to acquire the remaining 55% of Alliance Boots as the second step of the overall transaction. In August 2012, Walgreens acquired 45% of Alliance Boots in the first step of the overall transaction.

Dominic Murphy, Member, Head of KKR operations in the United Kingdom commented: “The investment in Alliance Boots adds to our track record of partnering with European entrepreneurs to build global companies and industry leaders. Since Alliance Boots was taken private in 2007, a strong investment program has led to a transformation of the company, both at the retail and distribution side, and to a strong international expansion across Europe, the Middle East and Asia. In 2012, we created, together with Walgreens, the world’s largest pharmacy-led health and wellbeing enterprise. Since then, Alliance Boots and Walgreens have made strong progress in executing on all synergies and plans, allowing the announcement today of the full combination.””

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Eastern Property Holdings announces acquisition of 100% of the A-Class office building Hermitage Plaza in Moscow

Eastern Property Holdings (“EPH” or the “Company”) would like to announce that it has acquired ownership of the A-Class office complex Hermitage Plaza located in Tverskoy central district of Moscow, in the center of Moscow`s business life. The cash payment for the acquisition of the property amounts to US$ 195 million, subject to possible post-completion adjustments.

Hermitage Plaza is a multi-storey A-Class business center fronting on Garden Ring, one of Moscow`s most important transport routes, and located in proximity to the Kremlin area and close to Mayakovskaya and Novoslobodskaya metro stations. The business center was fully renovated and opened in 2006. Hermitage Plaza with a total leasable area of above 30,000 sqm is fully rented out to mainly one tenant, Russian Telecommunication Company Vimpelcom.

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U.K. M&A Deals: What a U.S. Buyer Should Expect

This article explores the significant differences between market deal terms in the U.S. and U.K., with an additional focus on what buyers should expect when a business is being sold by a U.K. private equity fund.

Typically, U.S. private stock deals are executed on a ‘cash-free, debt-free’ basis, incorporating upward and downward adjustments to the agreed-to purchase price based on post-closing metrics.

Conversely, the ‘locked box’ method is gaining prevalence in the U.K. This approach involves an equity price being established using a historic set of accounts which the buyer has no ability to adjust after closing. If changes to these accounts occur, the buyer’s only right of claim is under contract.

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Europe Starved of Later Stage Venture Capital

Europe Starved of Later Stage Venture Capital

European tech companies are being starved of later-stage venture capital when compared to their U.S. counterparts, with fewer than one in three to four securing funding after a seed round, according to a leading venture capitalist.

Simon Cook, CEO of London venture-capital firm DFJ Esprit LLP, also said that the U.K.’s dominance as the European center for venture capital was slipping. According to Mr. Cook, somewhere between 500 to 1,000 companies a year get funding deals in Europe of under $5 million.

In the U.S. the comparable figure is 750-1,000. “This figure has been roughly static for about a decade,” he said. But when it came to funding the company’s growth stage, while roughly the same number of companies are founded in Europe as the U.S., in Europe only about 200 companies land deals of greater than $5 million; in the U.S. “that is closer to 1,000,” he said. “As I look at these figures — and I have done for a decade now — the good news is that Europe is not shrinking. The bad news is we are not catching up with the Americans in any way, shape or form yet.”

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Hedge funds brace for renewed debt crisis

Hedge funds brace for renewed debt crisis

The euro zone’s debt crisis may be far from over, while Japan’s money-printing gamble to revive its economy could destabilize global markets if it doesn’t work, some hedge fund managers say.

They are taking the view that the rally in financial markets over much of the past year, fuelled by central bank money printing, could mask a failure to tackle some European countries’ and banks’ debt problems, and the sell-off of recent weeks may be the start of a longer downward move.

“(A Cyprus-style bailout) will probably happen somewhere in Europe again,” said Galia Velimukhametova, fund manager at GLG, part of hedge fund manager Man Group, at the GAIM conference in Monaco on Tuesday.

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European hedge funds struggle to break into U.S. market

European hedge funds struggle to break into U.S. market

European and Asian hedge fund firms are finding the potentially lucrative U.S. market impossible to ignore, but as tough as ever to negotiate.

Delegates at the annual GAIM conference in Monaco this week talked about the difficulties, particularly for small funds, in attracting new money to an industry once at the top of investors’ wish lists.

With its pension funds, endowments and other investors now accounting for perhaps three quarters of new money flows into a funds sector increasingly desperate for new capital, breaking into the United States is seen as the holy grail for many foreign hedge fund managers.

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U.K. Leads European Venture-Capital Funding, but Russia Is Fastest Growing

According to The Wall Street Journal’s Ben Rooney, Venture Capital, Russia, Europe, Venture Capital, Finance, Netherlands, Germany, France, Economy, U.K Data on venture-capital funding show the extent of the boom in Russia’s technology sector over the past six years.

In our report Monday, we wrote that the U.K. led the overall European venture-funding pecking order, followed by Germany, France and the Netherlands. That was for all sectors, based on data produced by Dow Jones VentureSource.

Looking at the numbers for just the tech sector, a rather different pecking order emerges.

The revised tech figures push the Netherlands right off the grid (there was a large deal in 2012 in the biopharmaceuticals sector, which is why the Netherlands was ranked fourth overall). As of 2012, the top five nations were, in order: the U.K. (€867.46 million), France (€508.76 million), Germany (€431 million), Russia (€236.55 million) and Sweden (€88.93 million).

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Private Equity Firm Jacana Plans Africa Expansion With New Fund

Jacana Partners, a private-equity company with $43 million under management, agreed to merge with Kenya-based InReturn Capital and raise a new fund to invest in small and mid-sized businesses in Africa.

Jacana, based in London, is hoping to raise as much as $75 million for the fund from mostly development finance institutions and invest about $1 million to $5 million in each target company, Simon Merchant, chief executive officer of Jacana, said in an interview today in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital. The group plans to eventually attract a wider range of investors including pension funds and wealthy individuals in the U.S. and Europe over the next five to 10 years, he said.

The emergence of small and mid-sized companies is essential for the creation of jobs for Africa’s expanding population and can provide a basis for stronger economic growth, Merchant said. The fund could support domestic suppliers of consumer goods looking to tap into the continent’s burgeoning middle class that has money to spend, he said.

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Hedge Funds Boost Bullish Bets by Most Since July: Commodities

According to Bloomberg’s Elizabeth Campbell, Hedge funds increased bullish commodity bets by the most in six months as accelerating growth from China to the U.S. boosted prices for a seventh week.

Speculators raised net-long positions across 18 U.S. futures and options by 11 percent to 758,048 contracts in the week ended Jan. 22, the biggest gain since July 3, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show. Bullish crude- oil bets reached a four-month high, while those for soybeans climbed by the most since March. Investors are the most bullish on cotton since February 2011.

More than $2.2 trillion was added to the value of global equities this month as the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index posted the first eight-session rally since 2004. Manufacturing in China is expanding at the fastest rate in two years, and an index of U.S. leading indicators rose the most in three months in December, private reports showed Jan. 24. Germany’s economy, Europe’s largest, has started to show signs of recovery, the Bundesbank said Jan. 21.

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Hedge Funds See Further Profit From Glencore-Xstrata

Hedge funds are betting that commodities trader Glencore will succeed in its battle for miner Xstrata, in a long-running deal that has been profitable for arbitrageurs and is still attracting funds looking to make money.

Arbs, hungry for action after a lean period for M&A, have been buzzing around the deal for months, attracted by its size, liquidity and complexity, and many profited from last week’s move by Glencore(GLEN.L) to sweeten its now 23 billion pound all-share bid.

Reported by Laurence Fletcher and Sophie Sassard, Reuters, Xstrata (XTA.L) was expected to recommend the offer as early as next week, although Qatar Holding – its second-biggest investor after Glencore – has yet to make its decision public.

However, after a breakthrough in talks last week, brokered by former British prime minister Tony Blair, many funds believe it is only a matter of time before the deal gets the Qataris’ stamp of approval.

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