Weekly People & Company News
- Timothy Hotchandani was hired as a senior managing director by Leerink Partners to focus on healthcare dealmaking involving life-science tools and diagnostics companies, according to Bloomberg News. He was previously managing director for Rothschild & Co. He’ll report to Barry Blake, Leerink’s global co-head of healthcare investment banking. Hotchandani was previously a managing director at Deutsche Bank AG.
- Doug Brody was appointed by KKR to lead its family capital push in the U.S. and EMEA as it scales up efforts to tap the $13 trillion global single family office market. Brody, a partner and 16-year KKR veteran who helped build the firm’s co-investment business globally, will work within the global client solutions team after a transition, and will work closely with Kate Richdale, who was appointed to an equivalent position in the Asia-Pacific region.
- Farrukh Bezar was added as an operating advisor by Littlejohn & Co. LLC, a private investment firm. Bezar brings more than 25 years of transportation and logistics industry experience as a strategist and analyst, most recently serving as the SVP and chief strategy officer at CSX Corp. Bezar will work closely with Littlejohn’s transportation and logistics team.
- Brian Lafemina was hired as an operating partner by Arctos, a private investment firm focused on sports franchises and alternative asset managers. Lafemina will act as an advisor to the firm’s portfolio franchises through Arctos Operating Platform. Lafemina brings over three decades of experience in sports operations, leadership and revenue generation, having spent 20 years at the Madison Square Garden Company including a role for which he led the business operations for the New York Rangers, New York Knicks and New York Liberty professional sports franchises.
- Rich Lesser, global chair and former CEO of BCG, was appointed vice chair of climate & sustainability and senior advisor by B Capital. He will continue his role at BCG. Jeff Johnson has also joined as general partner to lead the firm’s climate investment team. Johnson joins from Temasek, where he was a managing director and led the sustainable investing team.
- Longford Capital Management LP, a private investment company, and Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, a business litigation firm, are offering litigation financing for private equity firms and their portfolio companies. Longford has committed up to $40M to Quinn Emanuel’s private equity clients involved in litigation, funding attorneys’ fees and litigation costs and monetizing the value of meritorious legal claims. The agreement provides Quinn Emanuel’s PE clients and their portfolio companies with an alternative method of funding litigation.
- Blue Owl Capital Inc. beat out all other lenders to provide natural gas servicer, Dresser Utility Solutions, a $335M credit facility as it was able to offer lower pricing, Bloomberg reported. The company’s sponsor, First Reserve, was in discussions with other direct lenders but proceeded with only Blue Owl as it is providing the entire package priced at 5.5 percentage points over SOFR.
- Arcosa Inc., a provider of infrastructure-related products and services, has completed its acquisition of Ameron Pole Products LLC from NOV Inc. for $180M. Ameron is a manufacturer of concrete and steel poles for a range of infrastructure applications, including lighting, traffic, electric distribution and small-cell telecom. It has four manufacturing facilities in Alabama, California and Oklahoma.
- Diamondback Energy Inc. is borrowing $5.5B in the U.S. investment-grade market to partly help fund its $26B takeover of Endeavor Energy Resources LP. Diamondback is selling the bonds in five parts, according to Bloomberg. The longest portion of the offering, a 40-year security, will yield 142 basis points above Treasuries, after initial discussions of around 170 basis points
- Waverly Advisors LLC, an RIA backed by Wealth Partners Capital Group and HGGC, has purchased McShane Partners. Daniele Donahoe, CEO of McShane, and her team offer a boutique approach to investment management, wealth advisory, and financial planning, with a holistic engagement of each client’s financial goals, needs and risk tolerances. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
- Compass Group Equity Partners, a St. Louis-based private equity firm, has closed Compass Group Fund III, hitting a hard cap of $408M. The firm invests in lower middle market niche manufacturing & distribution and business & consumer services industries. It invests in companies with EBITDA between $2M and $15M, enterprise values of $20M to $200M and strong margin and cash flow generation, among other things.
- Paradigm, a San Francisco, CA-based crypto-focused investment firm, is reportedly raising an amount ranging from $750M to $850M for its new fund. Co-founded by GPs Fred Ehrsam and Matt Huang, Paradigm invests, builds, and contributes to companies and protocols with as little as $1M and as much as $100M+. They often get involved at the earliest stages and continue to support the portfolio companies over time.
- Floating Point, a NYC- and Boston, MA-based early stage VC firm investing in “complex sectors”, closed its second fund at $70M. Founded in 2021 by Eddie Segel and John Loser, former investors at hedge fund Bridgewater turned founding team members of Oscar Health, Floating Point invests in the technology and legacy industries. The firm now manages over $150M in assets on behalf of institutional, private equity, and family offices.
- Arcadia, a Washington-DC-based provider of a utility data and community solar platform, raised $50M in funding. Backers included Macquarie Asset Management as a new equity investor, alongside existing investors Energy Impact Partners, J.P. Morgan Asset Management, and BoxGroup, among others. In conjunction with the funding, Greg Callman of Macquarie, will join the company’s board of directors. Concurrent with the close of the growth round, Arcadia closed a new $30M credit facility with J.P. Morgan. The firm is led by CEO and founder Kiran Bhatraju.
- Upstream Security, an Ann Arbor, MI-based provider of cybersecurity extended detection and response (XDR) for connected vehicles and IoT, received an investment from Cisco Investments. The amount of the deal was not disclosed. Led by CEO Yoav Levy, Upstream Security provides a cloud-based data management platform purpose-built for mobility and IoT.
