Weekly People and Company News
- David Lamoureux was appointed CEO of Choice, a global payments company and a portfolio company of Nexa Equity. He succeeds Choice founder JohnPaul Golino, who will continue to serve on the board of directors. Lamoureux most recently served as Choice’s CFO and is a member of the board.
- Jeffrey Hsiang was promoted to Partner by NY-based Bloom Equity Partners, a tech-focused private equity firm. Prior to joining Bloom, Hsiang held roles at Blackstone’s Private Equity Group, Diversis Capital and Lazard M&A.
- John Pickhaver was named head of infrastructure and energy capital for the Americas by Macquarie Capital, the corporate advisory, capital markets and principal investing arm of Macquarie Group. Pickhaver was most recently co-head of Macquarie Capital in Australia and New Zealand.
- Dustin Owen was appointed CEO by American Clinical Research Services, which was formed by Latticework Capital Management with the acquisition of Catalina Research Institute and focuses on metabolic trials. Owen joined ACRS from Thermo Fisher Scientific/PPD, where he was SVP and GM of accelerated enrollment solutions (AES).
- Scott J.R. Smith was hired as managing director for Baird Global Investment Banking, an international financial services firm, in its global financial sponsors group. Smith joins Baird from Goldman Sachs where he was a managing director in the firm’s cross markets and financial and strategic investors group.
- Chirag Shah was hired as growth partner by Wavecrest Growth Partners, a growth equity firm focused on B2B SaaS companies. Shah will lead the operating platform. Most recently, he was an independent operating partner and interim CEO for software and tech-enabled companies backed by Riverside Co. and Gemspring Capital.
- Amplix, a tech advisory service and software to multiple industries and a portfolio company of Gemspring Capital, has purchased the tech advisory practice of Intervale Technologies Inc. Terms of the deal were not made available.
- Antarctica Capital, a NY-based investment firm bought Midwest Holding Inc., a tech-driven life and annuity company, in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $100mn. Midwest shareholders will receive $27 in cash per share. Midwest will maintain its name, personnel and headquarters in Lincoln, NE. and operational hubs in NY and VT.
- Sound Ventures closed its AI-focused fund on nearly $240 million and will invest $35mn to $50mn into each company it selects. Beverly Hills-based Sound was founded in 2015 by Ashton Kutcher and former talent scout Guy Oseary. Former Marsh head of strategy and planning Effie Epstein joined as GP in 2017. The firm has investments in OpenAI, Anthropic and StabilityAI.
- KKR has agreed to invest an additional $250 million in Serentica Renewables, a provider of clean energy solutions to large commercial and industrial customers. This latest funding builds on the $400 million investment from KKR in November 2022.
