Headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, with U.S. headquarters in Chicago, Il, Livingston International is the largest pure-play customs brokerage in North America and boasts the widest presence along America’s northern border. It is also the third-largest customs entry filer in the United States. The company serves as a trusted adviser to more than 30,000 businesses globally, facilitating the completion and transmission of customs documentation and ensuring goods are cleared through international borders seamlessly and expediently.
Livingston is also a leading provider of global trade management services, including trade consulting and customs compliance, helping businesses optimize their use of free trade agreements, mitigate compliance risk and recover duties where possible.
Platinum Equity is a global private equity firm with approximately $13 billion of assets under management and a highly specialized focus on business operations.
“Livingston has served as a critical partner to businesses around the world as they react and adapt to changes in the global trade environment,” said Dan McHugh, Chief Executive Officer, Livingston International. “We are excited about the possibilities that lie ahead and look forward to benefiting from Platinum’s dedicated resources and counsel as we continue to focus on providing best-in-class brokerage, freight forwarding and trade management solutions.”
In addition to its role as a trusted customs broker and adviser, Livingston offers international freight forwarding solutions with special emphasis on North American transportation and global air and sea freight capabilities. Its freight solutions also include value-added services, such as warehousing, barge services and project cargo.
About Platinum Equity
Founded in 1995 by Tom Gores, Platinum Equity is a global investment firm with approximately $13 billion of assets under management and a portfolio of approximately 40 operating companies that serve customers around the world. The firm is currently investing from Platinum Equity Capital Partners IV, a $6.5 billion global buyout fund, and Platinum Equity Small Cap Fund, a $1.5 billion buyout fund focused on investment opportunities in the lower middle market. Platinum Equity specializes in mergers, acquisitions and operations – a trademarked strategy it calls M&A&O® – acquiring and operating companies in a broad range of business markets, including manufacturing, distribution, transportation and logistics, equipment rental, metals services, media and entertainment, technology, telecommunications and other industries. Over the past 23 years Platinum Equity has completed more than 250 acquisitions.
About Livingston International
Livingston International focuses on customs brokerage and trade compliance, offering international trade consulting, global trade management and freight forwarding. It provides clarity in a world of trade complexity, so businesses can grow further, faster and smarter. Livingston employs approximately 3,200 associates at more than 100 key border points, sea ports, airports and other strategic locations across North America, Europe and Asia. Visit us at www.livingstonintl.com, and on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.
Media Contacts
Dan Whelan
Platinum Equity
310-282-9202
dwhelan@platinumequity.com
Dan Ovsey
Director, Public Relations & Marketing Communications
Livingston International
1-800-387-7582 / ext. 13088
dovsey@livingstonintl.com
Oakley Capital (“Oakley”), a leading Western Europe-focused private equity firm, has agreed to form a joint venture with Admiral Group plc (“Admiral”) to acquire two of Spain’s most well-regarded digital brokers for insurance and other financial products, Rastreator Comparador Correduría de Seguros S.L. (“Rastreator”) Asesor Seguros Online S.L. and Asesor Consumer Services S.L. (together “Acierto.com”). Completion of the transaction is subject to merger control clearance by the EU Commission as well as the approval of the Directorate-General for Insurance and Pension Funds in Spain.
Rastreator, a digital insurance broker, was founded in 2009 and allows users to buy insurance, financial products, travel, offers, telephone services, energy, finance and cars by comparing quotations. The business is currently 75% owned by Admiral, a British insurance company specialising in the direct sale of car insurance, and 25% by Mapfre, a Spanish multinational company dedicated to the insurance and reinsurance sectors. In 2018, Rastreator generated revenues of €29 million.
Founded in 2007, Acierto.com is a digital insurance broker which enables consumers to compare prices from over 30 car, motorcycle, health, life and home insurance companies. Currently, Acierto.com is majority-owned by its two founders, Carlos and Mario Brüggemann, who will retain a stake in the combined group following the transaction. In 2018, Acierto generated revenues of €13 million.
This transaction continues Oakley’s successful track record of investing in digital platforms across Europe. Having previously invested in Verivox, Germany’s leading energy price comparison website, and Facile, the price comparison market leader in Italy, Oakley has considerable expertise in the price comparison market. The Spanish market is at an early stage in its development, and therefore presents a similar growth opportunity to that experienced by Verivox and Facile as the market develops.
We are glad to welcome the team at Crosser to the portfolio, as the company has closed a EUR 3 million financing round to support international expansion.
Together with German early stage tech VC 42CAP, we led the round, with participation from existing investors Spintop Ventures, Almi Invest and Norrlandsfonden.
With the IoT market growing in a rapid pace, we spend a lot of time thinking about industrial IoT and the next paradigm shift for the industry: industry 4.0. Crosser stands out because they understand the big picture, and has built a platform that complements and improves the customers’ existing technology. We are really excited about this partnership and what it will bring, says Martin Gemvik, Senior Investment Manager at Industrifonden.
Factory/Asset owners and machine builders are looking into digital solutions to increase uptime, optimize processes and find new business models. The Crosser real-time analytics platform helps enterprises to integrate the machine world with the rest of their business and accelerate their digital transformation.
We are very pleased to have two new investors with a strong interest in industrial technologies, says Martin Thunman, CEO and co-founder of Crosser. This round of funding enables us to expand internationally, build out our partner ecosystem and to invest further in the development of our platform. The first step will be to expand into Germany, the leading industrial country in Europe.
Crosser recently announced its “Bring Your Own AI” strategy with support for a variety of third-party machine learning frameworks and an open ecosystem approach for machine learning algorithms in the Edge. The Crosser platform offers a unique simplicity to deploy and orchestrate advanced machine learning algorithms, data processing, analytics and data integration in the Edge at scale.
Toronto, April 30, 2019 – Onex Corporation (“Onex”) (TSX: ONEX) today announced Onex
Partners V and a consortium of co-investors have committed to invest $1.8 billion in Convex
Group Limited (“Convex”), of which approximately $1.6 billion has been funded.
Convex is a de novo specialty property and casualty insurance company headquartered in Bermuda
with an office in London. The company will write insurance and reinsurance with a focus on
underwriting complex specialty risks across a diversified range of business lines. The company is
led by Stephen Catlin, Paul Brand and a team of well-respected insurance industry experts.
“We’re very excited to partner with Stephen, Paul and the rest of the Convex team. They have a
reputation for disciplined underwriting and strong relationships as well as a multi-decade track
record of delivering market outperformance,” said Bobby Le Blanc, a Senior Managing Director
of Onex.
Todd Clegg, a Managing Director of Onex continued, “Consolidation within the insurance sector
has created opportunity for an independent carrier with a focused, specialist proposition, capable
of serving clients with complex risk exposures. The Convex platform is designed to satisfy this
demand.”
“Onex has a track record of successful investing in the insurance industry and a consistent view of
the market opportunity making it the ideal partner for us,” said Stephen Catlin, Chairman and Chief
Executive Officer of Convex. “With Onex’ support, Convex is uniquely positioned to provide a
high touch, client-service focused approach and leverage innovative and proprietary technology to
enhance the value we bring to our clients.”
The funded investment includes $750 million from Onex Partners V, $780 million from
co-investors, including PSP Investments, and $50 million from the Convex management team.
Onex’ portion of the equity investment as a Limited Partner in the Fund is $124 million.
About Onex
Onex is one of the oldest and most successful private equity firms. Through its Onex Partners and
ONCAP private equity funds, Onex acquires and builds high-quality businesses in partnership with
talented management teams. At Onex Credit, Onex manages and invests in leveraged loans,
collateralized loan obligations and other credit securities. Onex has $31 billion of assets under
management, including $6.4 billion of Onex proprietary capital, in private equity and credit
securities. With offices in Toronto, New York, New Jersey and London, Onex and the team are
collectively the largest investors across Onex’ platforms.
Onex’ businesses have assets of $51 billion, generate annual revenues of $32 billion and employ
approximately 217,000 people worldwide. Onex shares trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange
under the stock symbol ONEX. For more information on Onex, visit its website at
www.onex.com. Onex’ security filings can also be accessed at www.sedar.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This news release may contain forward-looking statements that are based on management’s current
expectations and are subject to known and unknown uncertainties and risks, which could cause
actual results to differ materially from those contemplated or implied by such forward-looking
statements. Onex is under no obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained
herein should material facts change due to new information, future events or otherwise.
For further information:
Emilie Blouin
Director, Investor Relations
Tel: +1 416.362.7711
Raico and Kramp have been fully integrated and will continue under the name Kramp. The name change ensues from the acquisition of Raico by Kramp, the Dutch supplier of parts and accessories for the agricultural sector, in 2018. The five stores in Italy that focus on the consumer market will keep the Raico brand name.
“We have strengthened our position in the Italian market through the acquisition of Raico,” says Kramp CEO Eddie Perdok. “The two companies have been merged at one location and we are going to build a warehouse with office space in the vicinity of Reggio Emilia. Becoming one company with one name marks a key milestone in our integration.”
New opportunities
“The combination of Kramp and Raico opens up new opportunities for our customers,” says Sales Director Italy Rafael Massei. “We have succeeded in integrating the strengths of Kramp and Raico. This results in a wider range, access to Europe’s largest webshop for agricultural machinery parts and accessories and better services for our customers. Our Italy-wide organisational structure will remain unchanged: our customers will retain their own contact person and will continue to be assured of quick deliveries from our central warehouse in Reggio Emilia.”
Background
Raico has collaborated with numerous suppliers that are specialised in the agricultural sector in Italy for more than 30 years. Kramp, which is an NPM Capital portfolio company, has a similar history, being founded in 1951. Kramp Groep is represented in 24 European countries and achieved a revenue of € 840 million in 2018.
Also read ‘Kramp: The success behind the “Amazon” of technical parts’
Viridium Group (“Viridium”), the leading specialist in the efficient management of life insurance portfolios, has completed the acquisition of Generali Lebensversicherung AG (“Generali Leben”) with effect from 30 April 2019. All the employees who have been servicing the portfolio of Generali Leben already have moved from Generali to Viridium Group. This means with the new portfolio company around 300 employees at its Hamburg and Munich locations have now become part of Viridium Group.
Full continuity is guaranteed for the policyholders of Generali Leben. Their contracts will con- tinue unchanged, and the contractually promised guarantees and benefits will be retained. The contacts in customer service and their contact data will also not change. Long-term service and cooperation contracts with Generali Deutschland AG (“Generali Deutschland”), amongst others on the management of the collective corporate pension business, will also guarantee continuity and stable business operations. The claims of brokers will remain unaffected.
The subsequent rebranding of Generali Leben is planned for autumn 2019 after a transition period. Written notification of this will be provided to customers in due time.
Generali Deutschland continues to hold a stake of 10.1% in Generali Leben.
Dr Heinz-Peter Roß, CEO of Viridium Group, commented: “We are delighted that from now on Viridium is privileged to take over responsibility for the customers of Generali Leben and their contracts. Over the coming months, we will be concentrated strongly on integration so that customers at Generali Leben can benefit from the advantages of our uniform, efficient plat- form.”
Following the acquisition, Viridium’s portfolio will amount to almost 4.8 million insurance con- tracts, and its portfolio companies will manage assets totalling approximately €60 billion (pro forma numbers as of the end of 2018). Viridium has subsequently significantly expanded its leading position in the efficient management of life insurance portfolios.
Minneapolis, MN, San Francisco, CA, and Santa Monica, CA – Perforce Software (“Perforce” or the “Company”), a global provider of enterprise-grade development operations (“DevOps”) software solutions, today announced a significant new equity investment from Francisco Partners, a global technology-focused private equity fund. With the investment, Francisco Partners will become an equal partner with affiliates of Clearlake Capital Group, L.P. (“Clearlake”), which initially invested in Perforce in late 2017. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Perforce has expanded significantly since Clearlake’s acquisition, completing three acquisitions and building out its platform across areas of agile management, application management and components, code management and collaboration, and automated testing. As a leader in the DevOps industry, Perforce provides the broadest suite of solutions that balance the security, compliance, and control needs of leading enterprises while providing developers and designers the freedom to innovate at global scale. With its extensive portfolio, Perforce helps global enterprises solve complex problems across the entire software development lifecycle.
“Throughout our partnership with Clearlake, Perforce has successfully accelerated revenue growth, continued significant innovation, and strengthened relationships with numerous blue-chip customers,” said Mark Ties, Perforce CEO. “We are excited to welcome Francisco Partners, a firm with deep infrastructure software experience, as we continue to expand our global footprint and deliver pioneering products efficiently and effectively. With these leading investment firms’ support, we will reach a new level of scale and accelerate our acquisition strategy, while remaining hyper-focused on our customers.” “We are very impressed by the leadership position that Perforce has established in the DevOps market and are excited to partner with management and Clearlake to drive the next phase of expansion,” said Brian Decker, Partner at Francisco Partners. “Perforce has successfully gained market share both organically and inorganically, and we look forward to building on this strong foundation,” added Evan Daar, Principal at Francisco Partners.
Behdad Eghbali, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Clearlake, commented, “Since our investment, Perforce has significantly scaled its revenue and profitability profile and expanded its breadth of solutions. With the implementation of our O.P.S.® approach, Perforce has grown into the category leader and is well positioned to leverage its unmatched technology to increase the adoption of DevOps practices across all end markets.”
Prashant Mehrotra, Partner at Clearlake added, “This partnership with Francisco Partners further supports our original investment thesis and sponsorship of Mark and the collective management team’s best in class playbook to sustainably drive organic growth combined with an aggressive M&A strategy in the DevOps market.”
The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2019. Financing and advisory services for the transaction will be provided by Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, and Ares. William Blair and Shea & Co served as co-financial advisors to Perforce. BofA Merrill Lynch, Evercore, and Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC also served as financial advisors in the transaction.
About Perforce
Perforce is a leading provider of enterprise scale software solutions to technology developers and development operations (“DevOps”) teams requiring productivity, visibility and scale during all phases of the development lifecycle. Enterprises across the globe rely on its agile planning and ALM tools, automated mobile and web testing, developer collaboration, static code analysis, version control and repository management solutions as the foundation for successful DevOps at scale. Perforce is trusted by the world’s most innovative brands, including NVIDIA, Pixar, Scania, Ubisoft, and VMware. For more information, please visit www.perforce.com.
About Francisco Partners
Francisco Partners is an investment firm that specializes in technology and technology-enabled services businesses. Since its launch over 19 years ago, Francisco Partners has raised over $14 billion in committed capital and invested in more than 200 technology companies, making it one of the most active and longstanding investors in the technology industry. The firm invests in opportunities where its deep sectoral knowledge and operational expertise can help companies realize their full potential. For more information, please visit www.franciscopartners.com.
About Clearlake
Clearlake Capital Group, L.P. is a leading private investment firm founded in 2006. With a sector-focused approach, the firm seeks to partner with world-class management teams by providing patient, long-term capital to dynamic businesses that can benefit from Clearlake’s operational improvement approach, O.P.S.®. The firm’s core target sectors are software and technology-enabled services; industrials and energy; and consumer. Clearlake has managed over $8 billion of institutional capital since inception and its senior investment principals have led or co-led over 100 investments. More information is available at www.clearlake.com.
We’re excited to announce our Series B investment in Fretlink, the digital freight forwarder disrupting the European road transport. With this Series B round, Fretlinkplans to build a new standard for the organisation of road freight.
Fretlink connects shippers with a large network of local carriers in Europe and acts as a flow orchestrator by providing matching and pricing recommendations based on transportation data analysis, automating operational processes and enabling European shippers to secure, manage and optimize their transport plans. The aim is to help shippers improve the overall performance of their supply chain.
Founded in 2016 in Paris, Fretlink is a key player in the digitalisation of the European freight logistics. The team already works with some of the largest shippers (400+ regular shippers) in France and Europe while partnering with a large network of transportation companies (5000+ registered carriers). Today, the start-up is pioneering the digitisation of the road freight industry with a new data-driven standard of organization and collaboration.
This funding round will allow Fretlink to finance its international expansion by opening new offices in Germany, Belgium and Poland. A core objective has been to improve the services offering to carriers and the new partners will help create the best platform providing a range of benefits and services that will include the purchase of trucks, equipment and accessories at reduced prices and optimization of fuel cost management.
Paul Guillemin, founder and CEO at Fretlink: “With the launch of our service platform, our priority is to help European regional carriers develop and sustain their business, by giving them access to appropriate and lucrative routes, as well as a range of services under advantageous conditions. Models and practices are undergoing radical transformation and we have always been convinced that it is by collaborating with the sector’s experts that we will manage to initiate change. We are delighted today to see Edenred Capital Partners join the Fretlink adventure to help build the road transport sector of the future.“
Norbert Furnion, Managing Partner at Edenred Capital Partners: “We decided to invest in this new funding round because the team assembled by Paul Guillemin and Antoine Le Squeren has already delivered a lot in a short period of time and will further help their clients streamline the supply chain. The review of the operations have highlighted many synergies with Edenred which is already one of the world leader in professional Fleet & Mobility .“
InfraVia today announces it has agreed to sell to Valorem SA its 49% stake in
Force Hydraulique Antillaise SAS (“FHA”), the leading developer and operator
of hydro power plants in the French Caribbean islands.
FHA provides essential renewable electricity generation services in the French
Caribbean islands, a territory heavily dependent on fossil fuels.
With this transaction, Valorem acquires 51% of FHA from InfraVia and its founder
Raphael Gros (who keeps a 49% stake in the company).
InfraVia had invested in FHA in 2010 when the company operated a portfolio
of 1MW. Today, FHA owns 10.4MW of small scale operational plants, 6.4MW of
ready-to-build assets and has a further pipeline of c.100MW.
For this transaction, InfraVia has been advised by Astris (M&A) and Weil, Gotshal
& Manges (legal).
ABOUT INFRAVIA
InfraVia is an independent investment manager dedicated to the infrastructure
sectors. Founded in 2008, InfraVia manages several infrastructure funds, all
positioned as long-term investors across the European infrastructure mid-market.
InfraVia manages EUR 4 billion of assets with 32 people, deployed through 30 portfolio companies across 11 countries in Europe.
www.infraviacapital.com
ABOUT VALOREM
Valorem was founded in 1994 and is based in Bègles. Valorem is an independent
renewable energy company which develops renewable energy projects for its own
account and on behalf of third parties. Its services include technical assistance and
development, engineering, construction and operation and maintenance. The company
predominantly develops onshore wind farms, as well as solar and hydro power plants in
France and internationally.
www.valorem-energie.com
