Fund Management

Barry Siadat has left Arsenal Capital to raise a fund focussed on global speciality chemicals.

The firm is taking steps to ensure it has energy and hedge fund strategies in place prior to going public.

The end of short-selling by hedge funds could be nigh, as market participants’ focus shifts from opportunistic buys to companies’ economic fundamentals.

London-based Evans Randall and its longstanding real estate investment partner and financier, Bank of Scotland, are using the capital to expand the European Property Fund.

The bar code scanner company has agreed to be acquired by Honeywell International after being taken private for $398.5 million in December 2006.

Recently rebranded Istithmar World, backed by the Dubai government, has agreed to purchase a majority stake in US firm Gulf Stream Asset Management.

The buyout firm blew the whistle on a former Wall Street trader who has settled an SEC lawsuit alleging he spread false rumours about Blackstone’s Alliance Data deal.

The success of TDC, the Danish telecoms company backed by a buyout consortium, in deleveraging by buying its own debt at a discount, has tempted other firms to follow suit.

Forward-looking fund managers are preparing their portfolio companies for life in a deteriorating economic and financial climate, delegates at PEI’s Asia Forum in Hong Kong learned.

After a tough year in 2007 providers of the hybrid form of debt are likely to capitalise fully on the disappearance of competition to finance leveraged buyouts.