Private Markets

Iconic tennis champion and entrepreneur Venus Williams has been named Operating Partner of Topspin Consumer Partners, a private equity firm. Williams will work with portfolio companies to broaden marketing strategies, increase brand exposure, and source new investment opportunities. “Venus is not only one of the greatest athletes of all time, but she is also an established entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist,” Leigh Randall, Managing Partner of Topspin, said in a statement...

Brookfield Reinsurance announced it will acquire Argo Group International Holdings in an all-cash transaction valued at about $1.1 billion, taking the company private. Bermuda-based insurer Argo announced in April 2022 that it had begun searching for “strategic alternatives” after several years of losses and turmoil...

Enterprise software company QAD Inc. has acquired Redzone, the leading connected workforce platform for manufacturing, for approximately $1 billion. The transaction is the second for Thoma Bravo-owned QAD since December, when it acquired Livejourney, a provider of a real-time process mining and predictive modeling designed to discover, monitor, and improve business processes...

Leading infrastructure and environmental solutions provider Atlas Technical Consultants, Inc. has entered into a definitive agreement to be sold to private investment firm GI Partners in a $1.05 billion all-cash transaction, according to Bernhard Capital Partners, which formed Atlas in a 2017 deal and became its largest shareholder. Under the terms of the agreement, which includes outstanding debt, Atlas shareholders will receive $12.25 per share in cash...

Investment firm Thoma Bravo has agreed to purchase Magnet Forensics Inc., a developer of digital investigations software, for about $1.3 billion, the companies said in January statements. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2023, pending customary approvals...

S&P Global has entered into an agreement to sell its Engineering Solutions business to KKR-managed investment funds for $975 million in cash, the financial information company announced in mid-January. KKR has been a longstanding S&P customer. The agreement follows S&P Global's November announcement that it would divest the business...

Vista Equity Partners will take Boston-based insurance software company Duck Creek Technologies private in an all-cash deal valued at $2.6 billion, Duck Creek said in January. The terms of the deal include a "go-shop" period until February 7, during which the company's board can solicit and consider alternate proposals...

In the latest action by a Japanese entity to secure gas from friendly places following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a unit of Tokyo Gas Co. Ltd. is in advanced talks to purchase Houston-based Rockcliff Energy from private equity firm Quantum Energy Partners, Reuters reported. The unit, TG Natural Resources, is expected to pay $4.6 billion, including debt, in the all-cash deal...

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance.US announced in mid-December that it would purchase the assets of bankrupt Voyager Digital for $1.022 billion. The deal will go before the courts in January, according to Forbes. Voyager had billions of dollars’ worth of crypto at the end of 2021, but a broader market downturn and a series of bad bets, including on Three Arrows Capital and Alameda Research (FTX’s sister cryptocurrency trading firm), ate away at the firm’s available capital...

Private equity firm Advent International will acquire Maxar Technologies, a space company the wider world first learned about from its high-resolution satellite images of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in a $6.4 billion deal. Boston-based Advent, which has $89 billion in assets under management, will acquire all outstanding shares of Maxar common stock for $53 per share in cash...