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Bridge to buy Newbury; LMP sees 'fruitful ground' in retirement services

Happy Valentine’s Day, Hubsters.

MK Flynn here with today’s Wire, hoping your day is filled with love.

So far, my day has been filled with deal announcements, including one involving secondaries stakes, on this busy Tuesday morning.

We’re also featuring an interview with Lovell Minnick Partners about a recent investment in retirement services.

Let’s get right to today’s deals.

Bridge Investment Group Holdings announced this morning that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire substantially all of the business of Newbury Partners LLC, an investment manager that specializes in acquiring limited partnership interests in private equity funds through secondary transactions. The all-cash transaction is valued at roughly $320 million.

CORE Industrial Partners, a manufacturing, industrial technology, and industrial services-focused private equity firm, announced today the acquisition of GEM Manufacturing, a provider of precision deep drawn metal components and mechanical assemblies. GEM represents the fifth platform investment in CORE Industrial Partners Fund II, a $465 million fund closed in February 2021.

Drilling Tools International, an oilfield services company that has been a majority owned by Hicks Equity Partners for almost ten years, announced its plans to go public through a business combination with ROC Energy Acquisition Corp, a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company. The combined company is expected to be listed under the new ticker symbol "DTI."

Pharos Capital Group, a middle-market private equity firm based in Dallas and Nashville, announced today it has sold its majority stake in portfolio company MOTION PT Group to Confluent Health, for undisclosed terms.MOTION is a physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy company with 59 clinic locations across Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, and New York.

Time to retire? And now for a PE Hub deep dive.

As the overall US population ages, it’s clear demand for retirement services of all kinds will grow. The desire of many American employees to secure retirement funds, coupled with regulatory trends, attracted Lovell Minnick Partners – a Radnor, Pennsylvania, PE firm – to take a majority investment in Definiti, a retirement services company based in The Woodlands, Texas, earlier this month.

PE Hub’s Obey Martin Manayiti caught up with Jason Barg, LMP partner, who detailed opportunities that the firm identified with Definiti. He described the company as a “trusted partner” for its clients, something that is key in establishing success in the retirement services space.

What interested LMP to make the investment is that Definiti provides complex services that are not easily replicated, Barg said. “Between the tailwinds of the market, plus the tailwinds for this specific company as one of the largest national TPA providers out there, we think that creates a really compelling investment opportunity for us.”

Staying in the market. Over at Buyouts, Kirk Falconer had a scoop this morning, when he reported that Investment Management Corp of Ontario expanded private equity investing in 2022, as many of its LP peers grappled with cash constraints.

IMCO disbursed more than C$2.5 billion ($1.9 billion) to fund and direct investments last year, up 9 percent from 2021, said Craig Ferguson, managing director, private equity, in an exclusive interview.

We’ll wrap things up with some people news.

Ara Partners, a private equity firm that specializes in industrial decarbonization investments, today announced that Peter Saldarriaga has joined the firm as a managing director. Saldarriaga will be based in Ara’s Boston office. He has over fifteen years of experience in private equity and consulting. He spent over twelve years at Bain Capital, focused on buyouts and growth investments in the industrial, business services, and technology sectors. Saldarriaga also was the co-founder, CEO, and CFO of Belong Acquisition Corp, a $150 million SPAC focused on high-growth tech-enabled businesses.

As I said, it’s been a busy morning!

As usual, Buyouts’ Chris Witkowsky will write Wednesday’s Wire, and I’ll be back on Thursday.

Cheers,

MK

Read the full wire commentary on PE Hub ...

Also of note (may require subscriptions)

The number of private equity funds closed last year fell by one third to 1,520 – the lowest total since 2016. Private Equity International has all the details in its Fundraising Report FY 2022.

Milltrust and EFFV eye alternative proteins after period of ‘silly money chasing silly deals’ ends. Alexander Kalis and Brian Ruszczyk say the time is right to deploy capital in agtech and offer their view on the future of the alternative protein sector. (Agri Investor)

A traditional source of tension with LPs, GPs are finding an outlet for cross-fund investments in continuation fund deals. (Buyouts)

Meet the 2,000-strong network of senior women in PE: Julia Boyd and Priscilla Guevara, two founders of the Senior Women in PE network, discuss what's needed for the industry to improve its gender balance. (Private Equity International)

How airports are charting a flight path to net zero: Airports may account for a small proportion of the aviation industry’s carbon emissions, yet they have an outsize role to play in its decarbonization. (Infrastructure Investor)

A Credit Suisse Asset Management internal memo seen by Private Equity International confirms plans by the bank to transfer its Private Fund Group to CS First Boston, its investment banking and capital markets business.

Single-asset continuation funds comprised around 40% of GP-led secondaries volume in 2022, down from 52% the prior year, according to Lazard's Secondary Market Report 2022. (Secondaries Investor)

"Danny Lee, who previously ran private equity investments for the family office of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. co-founder Joe Tsai, is seeking to raise about $200 million for his own fund targeting wealthy individuals looking to diversify their investments." (Bloomberg)

"Bain Capital plans to capitalize on lower pricing for tech companies with a new $2.4 billion tech-focused private-equity fund that is nearly twice the size of its predecessor." (WSJ Pro)