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Green Investment Group acquires Tysvaer onshore wind farm in Norway

The Tysvaer onshore wind farm is one of the renewable energy projects being developed by GIG and will comprise 11 Siemens Gamesa 4.3MW turbines.

Green Investment Group (GIG), a Macquarie Group company, has announced the acquisition of the 47MW Tysvaer Onshore Wind Farm in Norway from Spanish Power.

The acquisition is GIG’s first development in Norway, expanding the company’s presence in the Nordic region.

Previously, GIG had acquired Markbygden, Overturingen and Hornamossen onshore wind farms in Sweden.

Located in the Tysvaer municipality within Rogaland Fylke in southern Norway, the Tysvaer onshore wind farm is one of the renewable energy projects being developed by GIG and will comprise 11 Siemens Gamesa 4.3MW turbines.

Tysvaer Onshore Wind Farm is in the final stages of planning

The project, which is in the final stages of planning, is being studied by the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE).

The company received outline planning consent in July 2018 and amended layouts are expected to be finalised in October 2019.

GIG is using several Norwegian supply chain companies to deliver the project, which will support high-value jobs during the construction and operations.

Nordisk Vindkraft has been selected as construction manager. RISA will be responsible for the construction of roads, turbine foundations and the installation of electric cables.

The project is being developed directly by GIG and construction is expected to commence in early 2020.

When fully operational, the Tysvaer onshore wind farm will produce enough low-carbon electricity to power the equivalent of 8,750 Norwegian homes every year.

The wind farm will also displace around 8,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions, the equivalent of removing 2,500 cars from the road.

Green Investment Group Europe head Edward Northam said: “Norway is blessed with some of the best renewable resources in Europe which have already enabled the country to deliver a virtually zero-carbon electricity system.

“But the ambition doesn’t end there. Norway’s goal of achieving emissions neutrality is one of the most impressive low-carbon visions anywhere in the world and I’m delighted that GIG is able to help drive Norway’s green shift.”

Green Investment Group was launched initially by the UK government in 2012 and was acquired by the Macquarie Group in 2017.

Recently, it entered the Polish wind market by acquiring the 42MW Kisielice onshore wind farm from Impax New Energy.

Read More – nsenergybusiness.com

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PDC Energy to acquire SRC Energy for £1.4bn

The merger of the two oil and natural gas exploration and production companies is expected to create the second largest producer in the DJ Basin

PDC Energy has agreed to acquire rival US oil and gas company SRC Energy for about $1.7bn (£1.39bn) in an all-stock transaction to create a premier mid-cap operator with peer-leading cost structure and free cash flow profile.

The total consideration includes SRC Energy’s net debt of around $685m (£560.53m) as of 30 June 2019.

Headquartered in Colorado, PDC Energy operates in the Wattenberg Field in the state and also in the Delaware Basin in West Texas. The company’s operations are centred on the liquid-rich horizontal Niobrara and Codell plays in the Wattenberg Field and the liquid-rich Wolfcamp zones located in the Delaware Basin.

SRC Energy, which is also based in Colorado, has been operating since 2008. The company’s oil and gas assets are located mainly in the Wattenberg Field in the Denver-Julesburg Basin (DJ Basin) in northeast Colorado.

Following the merger, PDC Energy will expand its acreage in Wattenberg to nearly 182,000 net acres, of which almost 100% is located in Weld County, Colorado.

The second quarter 2019 total production of the enlarged company is around 200,000 barrels of oil equivalent (Boe) per day. The combined company is expected to become the second largest producer in the DJ Basin, and will also hold nearly 36,000 net acres of acreage in Delaware Basin.

PDC Energy president and CEO Bart Brookman said: “SRC’s complementary, high-quality assets in the Core Wattenberg, coupled with our existing inventory and track record of operational excellence will create a best-in-class operator with the size, scale and financial positioning to thrive in today’s market.

“We remain committed to our core Delaware Basin acreage position and are confident the combined company with its multi-basin focus will be well-positioned to deliver superior shareholder returns.”

Read More – www.nsenergybusiness.com

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£21m-turnover manufacturer acquired by German group

A Keighley-based manufacturer of precision fastener devices which sells components worldwide has been acquired by a German counterpart. £21m-turnover Glusburn Holdings, the holding company of Cirteq, has been bought by German manufacturer Titgemeyer, an international fastening and transport technology company. Cirteq operates out of a modern factory in Glusburn, near Keighley, with 215 staff and a further 55 employed via agencies. Established in the 1930s, the company went through a series of corporate ownerships, including …

Read More – www.thebusinessdesk.com

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The most active investors in European unicorns

Swiss fintech startup Numbrs has received $40 million in funding from private investors, pushing its valuation above $1 billion. Launched in 2014, the Zurich-based company partners with banks and insurers such as Santander, Allianz and Barclays and has over €10 billion (around $11.1 billion) in managed assets. Numbrs allows users to manage all their bank accounts under one app, which has more than 2 million downloads. It brought in $27 million from investors including Israeli billionaire Marius Nacht in May 2018 and has reportedly raised nearly $200 million in total financing to date.

Numbrs is the ninth startup to join this year’s European unicorn class—a third of which are fintech businesses—per the PitchBook Platform. German payments provider N26 joined the ranks in January with a $300 million Series D that valued the company at $2.7 billion and in May, its London-based peer Checkout.com landed $230 million in its first fundraise at a valuation of $2 billion. Other newly minted unicorns reportedly include healthtech startup Doctolib and OneTrust, the developer of a privacy management platform.

While Europe still has relatively few billion-dollar businesses compared to the US and Asia, its unicorn club has witnessed significant growth in the past few years. The continent currently has 33 unicorns, including over 20 that hit the $1 billion valuation in the last two years.

The rise in European unicorns is proof that VCs are increasingly willing to invest their money in startups from the continent, but a few names are cropping up more than others.

Using PitchBook data, we’ve compiled a list of the 10 most active investors in European companies valued at more than $1 billion, with their deal counts since the start of 2011 in parentheses.

1. Accel (16)
2. Index Ventures (15)
3. Passion Capital (8)
T-4. General Atlantic (7)
T-4. DST Global (7)
T-4. Valar Ventures (7)
T-7. DN Capital (6)
T-7. HV Holtzbrinck Ventures (6)
T-7. SoftBank (6)
T-7. Insight Partners (6)

Read More – www.pitchbook.com

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IWG may launch US IPO, extending co-working space growth frenzy

International Workplace Group is considering an IPO in New York for its US-based operations, according to Sky News. Such a spinoff could reportedly be worth up to £3 billion (about $3.67 billion), nearly equal to IWG’s £3.64 billion (about $4.45 billion) market cap as of August 26. The company did not immediately respond to PitchBook’s request for comment.

The news came less than two weeks after WeWork released its S-1 document August 14, revealing 1H 2019 losses of over $900 million while holding a footprint comparable to IWG’s. As a result, IWG’s consideration of an IPO is perhaps a direct response to WeWork’s advance, evidenced by IWG’s insistence of only considering underwriters that are not involved with WeWork’s IPO, again per Sky News.

IWG isn’t the only player in this space making moves after WeWork’s S-1 reveal.

On Thursday, New York-based Industrious reeled in $80 million from Brookfield Property Partners and fitness club provider Equinox, among others. CEO Jamie Hodari expects the company to be profitable within a “few months,” according to Reuters. On Wednesday, New York-based Knotel announced it had pulled in $400 million at an over $1 billion valuation in a round led by Wafra.

Lesser-known competitors, such as The Yard, Convene, BHIVE Workspace, Alley, and The Wing, also stand to possibly beef up their game as WeWork’s IPO plays out.

Read More – www.pitchbook.com

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Hasbro buys Peppa Pig owner Entertainment One in £3.3bn deal

The US toy company behind My Little Pony and Play-Doh has agreed to buy Peppa Pig for £3.3bn in the the latest foreign takeover of a much-loved British brand for a bargain price following the collapse in the value of the pound over fears of a no-deal Brexit.

The sale of Peppa Pig’s owner Entertainment One to Hasbro brings the total value of UK companies to fall into overseas hands in the last two months to more than £25bn. City analysts said foreign investors were finding UK businesses very attractive since Boris Johnson’s ascension to prime minister sent sterling to its lowest level against the dollar in recent years.

“It’s pretty clear that a whole raft of London investment banks are trawling the world saying, ‘Do you want to buy this in Britain?’,” Clive Black, an analyst at broker Shore Capital, said this week.

“The foreign takeovers keep on coming,” Russ Mould, the investment director at stockbroker AJ Bell, said: “Entertainment One has been seen as a bid target for a long time although all the chatter has focused on a media company being the logical suitor.”

Hong Kong’s richest family bought the 220-year-old pub and beer company Greene King this week in a £4.6bn deal. The US private equity group Advent International agreed a £4bn buyout of the UK aerospace and defence supplier Cobham last month, and the Netherlands-based Takeaway.com agreed a £5bn takeover of Just Eat.

Read More – www.theguardian.com

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Heartland Express acquires Millis Transfer

Heartland Express announces that it acquired dry van truckload carrier Millis Transfer for ~$150M.

The company says it’s impressed with the high quality of the Millis Transfer driving professionals and the organization’s safety profile.

Heartland plans to fund the purchase price and pay off the assumed debt with existing cash.  Looking ahead, Heartland expects to end the year with approximately $50M to $60M in cash, zero debt and approximately $90M available under its revolving line of credit.

Read More – www.seekingalpha.com

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Cloudflare’s IPO filing at a glance: rising revenue, falling losses and risky customers

A day after WeWork’s blockbuster IPO filing appeared, another big VC-backed name has advanced to the next step in 2019’s IPO frenzy.

Web services unicorn Cloudflare has publicly released its S-1, planning to trade on the NYSE under the symbol NET. The company did not disclose the number of shares that would be offered and set a placeholder target of raising $100 million. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan are the lead underwriters.

Founded in 2009, the San Francisco-based cybersecurity and internet services provider grew relatively quickly in its early days, followed by something of a plateau in the past few years. Cloudflare was valued at $6.3 million after a $2.25 million Series A in 2009, and its valuation began steadily rising from there, jumping to $80 million in 2011, $1 billion in 2012 and $1.8 billion in 2015 following a $182 million Series D. The company stayed off the fundraising radar for four years, before raising $150 million this past March amid rumors of the impending public debut.

Key figures

A key challenge for Cloudflare is that it operates in a relatively saturated field, in contrast to some of the other VC-backed unicorns in relatively new industries. Cloudflare counts Cisco, Zscaler, Akamai, Amazon and Microsoft as just some of its competitors, resulting in comparatively more modest YoY growth rates than those in WeWork’s prospectus, for example.

 

Read More – www.pitchbook.com

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Despite signs of a potential recession, deal maker sentiment remains optimistic

Recent news about the yield inversion will probably have an effect on investor psyche. Inversions have historically predated recessions by as many as 24 months—one lag in particular (2005-2007) also included a significant rise in the S&P. In four of the last five recessions, the lag between inversion and the start of a recession has lasted at least a year.

It’s a bit different with market corrections, which in two of five cases have begun in three months or less. Another tidbit came earlier this year from Bain & Co.’s Hugh MacArthur, who noted “only three periods historically [where] private multiples generally exceed the public average: during the ‘Barbarians at the Gate’ era of the mid-1980s, during the exuberant runup to the 2008 global financial crisis, and now.”

The sky has been falling for a long time among prognosticators, and the “tea leaves” in the featured chart don’t give us much of a schedule to work with. At PitchBook, we’ve been trying to gauge investor sentiment through our PE Deal Multiples Survey. In our last survey, we asked respondents for their reasons for canceling or renegotiating their most recent transactions. Here are their responses:

Those answers painted an optimistic picture among dealmakers, with only 7% citing negative changes in market fundamentals. The two most-cited responses reflect a strong market—41% said they found adverse information during due diligence and 24% said another buyer swooped in with a better offer.

Even not-that-bad information found during diligence is legitimate grounds to rethink purchase prices. There isn’t a lot of room for error with today’s multiples, and we’ve heard plenty of anecdotes of deals taking upward of 12 months to close. Furthermore, there are lots of buyers trying to put their money to work, so overcautious dealmakers will lose out to higher bidders. Those two reasons accounted for 65% of our results.

We’re curious about your thoughts as dealmakers, and our newest survey is now live. All deal data is kept confidential and isn’t published on our database. Participants receive the full aggregated report and are entered into a $300 Amazon gift card drawing—and everyone gets a candid look of current market sentiment, which may shift in the next month, or year, or two years.

 

Read More – www.pitchbook.com

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CBS, Viacom enter streaming wars with $30B combination

In the latest example of major consolidation in the media industry, CBS and Viacom have officially agreed to conduct a long-awaited merger, creating a new company called ViacomCBS with a combined market cap of around $30 billion. The deal will merge CBS’s broadcast offerings and the Showtime network with MTV, Comedy Central, the Paramount film studio and other Viacom brands, adding a broad collection of new content to CBS All Access, the network’s existing streaming service.

As consumer tastes have evolved and in-home streaming has emerged as perhaps the dominant entertainment form of our time, many of the industry’s biggest players have turned to M&A to augment their offerings. It’s been a little more than a year since AT&T acquired Time Warner for $85 billion, adding brands like HBO and Turner to its stable. And earlier this year, Disney beat out Comcast to purchase a raft of TV and film assets from 21st Century Fox for approximately $71 billion, making major content additions ahead of the planned launch of its Disney+ streaming service. Disney also took control of Hulu earlier this year, valuing the streaming pioneer at $15 billion.

The newly formed ViacomCBS, though, will be considerably smaller than some of its streaming competition. AT&T and Disney both have market caps of over $240 billion, making them more than 8x the size of ViacomCBS. Netflix carries a market cap of more than $135 billion, even after its stock has slid in recent weeks in the wake of disappointing 2Q results.

The combination of Viacom and CBS has long been rumored, due largely to the very close ties between the two New York-based companies. They were in fact the same company until 2006, when media tycoon Sumner Redstone split them into two entities. Redstone and his National Amusements holding business have maintained control over both Viacom and CBS in the years since, with his daughter Shari Redstone assuming more power in recent years as her father has reportedly battled health issues.

Current Viacom president and CEO Bob Bakish will assume those same roles at the new ViacomCBS, while Joe Ianniello, the acting head of CBS, will remain in charge of CBS-branded assets. Ianniello has been the interim CEO at CBS since longtime leader Leslie Moonves stepped down last September following several allegations of sexual harassment.

 

Read More – www.pitchbook.com