News 2013
Azini Sells OB10
Azini Capital has completed the £100 million sale of portfolio company OB10 Limited (OB10) as a part of the £225 million IPO of Tungsten Corporation plc (Tungsten).
Tungsten, a business founded by private equity and City rainmaker Edmund Truell, has successfully completed its £225 million IPO on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange. The listing raised £160 million to fund the acquisition of OB10 and was significantly oversubscribed. Tungsten shares commenced trading on 16th October. OB10 shareholders, including Azini, have taken 30% of their consideration in Tungsten shares.
During Azini Capital’s period of ownership OB10 established itself as a leading global e-invoicing network; and now processes more than £100 billion annually for many of the world’s largest companies (including working with 61% of the FTSE 100 and 53% of the Fortune 500). Founded in 2000, OB10 is headquartered in London, with offices in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. The OB10 network hosts 122 large corporate and governmental buyer groups and over 140,000 suppliers. Tungsten has an agreement - subject to appropriate regulatory approvals - to acquire a duly authorised UK bank to specialise in the provision of supply chain financing and invoice discounting to OB10’s customer base. Luke McKeever, Chief Executive of OB10, commented “Azini Capital has been a leading investor and supporter of OB10 and were instrumental to my joining the business in 2011. As an active member of the board of directors, Azini played a key role in defining the direction and plan that ultimately led to OB10’s success and were heavily involved at every stage in the sale process”. Nick Habgood, Managing Partner of Azini Capital and board director of OB10 commented, “This is another really good exit for our Azini 1 fund which was established in 2007. We would like to thank Luke and his team for their extraordinary commitment and hard work over the past months and years. Tungsten is a great home for OB10 and we wish them all the very best of luck for the future.
Tungsten to Acquire OB10
Tungsten enters into agreement to acquire Azini portfolio company OB10
Tungsten Corporation plc. has today announced that it has entered into an agreement with shareholders of OB10 Limited, including Azini Capital, regarding the conditional acquisition of OB10.
OB10 is a leading global B2B cloud based e-invoicing network processing over £100bn per annum in invoice value through its network. The company was founded in 2000 and has won 122 buyer-side clients, many of whom are Fortune 500 and FTSE 100 companies, including HP, Kraft, Unilever, GSK, J&J, BP and Tesco. On the “supplier-side” OB10 has a network of over 140,000 registered suppliers and is active in 42 countries. The shareholders of OB10 will receive £99 million comprising a 70:30 split of cash and Tungsten shares. Tungsten intends to seek the admission of its shares to trading on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange and to raise up to £160 million via the placing of new shares.
Azini Acknowledged by Prequin
Azini Capital’s investment performance acknowledged
Azini Capital’s investment performance has been acknowledged in a new “2013 Consistent Performers in Private Equity” report, from Preqin a leading source of alternative assets industry data and intelligence.
The Azini 2 fund, which was formed in 2010 to acquire a portfolio of shareholdings from Apax Partners, has been credited number 6 in the category “Top 10 Best Performing Europe-Focused Funds (Fund Size $100mn+, Vintage 2006 - 2010)”. It was the only Direct Secondaries fund to make the list. The Preqin report analyzes the most consistent performing fund managers for buyout, venture capital and fund of funds vehicles utilising Preqin’s fund-by-fund returns data for over 6,300 private equity funds, representing 70% of the total capital raised by the industry. Lexington Partners - the world’s largest independent manager of secondary private equity and co-investment funds - is the principal investor in the Azini 2 fund. For further details see here.
Azini Exits Centerbeam
EarthLink, Inc. (NASDAQ: ELNK), a leading IT services and communications provider, has agreed to acquire Azini Capital’s portfolio company CenterBeam Inc. for $22 million. The transaction is structured as an asset purchase and is expected to close early in the third quarter of 2013.
Headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA, CenterBeam provides remote managed IT services to multi-location mid-sized US businesses. The company operates a 140-person IT Support and network operations center providing help desk, technical support and application support services.
Azini acquired its stake in Centerbeam from Apax in October 2010 and subsequently led two rounds of funding into the company to become CenterBeam’s largest shareholder. With $1.35 billion in revenue (FY2012), Earthlink has the resources and reach to accelerate the adoption and deployment of CenterBeam’s award winning services. EarthLink intends to accelerate its product capabilities for hosted collaboration services and unified end point management services and to offer CenterBeam’s 365+ Enterprise Cloud service, which provides a full suite of collaboration services, along with its nationwide Hosted Voice platform, through its existing distribution channels. Nick Habgood of Azini Capital said “On behalf of Azini Capital I would like to thank CenterBeam’s management and staff for their hard work and commitment - the essential ingredient in making this exit possible. We are confident that Earthlink will be a great home for the Centerbeam business, its customers and staff. We wish you all the best of luck going forward”.
Nasdaq to Implement Corvil
NASDAQ OMX to Implement Corvil Operational Performance Monitoring Across U.S. Trading Platforms
First Exchange Group to Deploy Independent Solution to Better Serve Regulatory Functions for Member Firms
The NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:NDAQ) has announced plans to implement CorvilNet, an independent solution for operational performance monitoring that provides a new level of visibility, safeguards and protection for the exchange group’s U.S. trading platforms. CorvilNet is powered by Corvil, the leading provider of real-time operational performance monitoring for wire data. NASDAQ OMX will leverage CorvilNet to better serve member firms that contribute to the exchange group’s deeply liquid marketplaces. CorvilNet’s operational performance monitoring system provides the exchange group with the ability to simultaneously analyze activity at the network, application and trading layers. The comprehensive information that is captured will allow the exchange group to alert for anomalies in real time and improve technology systems performance. Advanced diagnostic tools may be used to track the full life cycle of a trade, enhancing NASDAQ OMS’s ability to respond effectively to member firm queries relating to technical issues, performance levels, or trading outcomes. In addition, the independently developed tool will strengthen NASDAQ OMX’s ability to ensure compliance in a fragmented marketplace with heightened focus on transparency. The exchange group will use CorvilNet to support regulatory functions such as tracking all outbound data feeds to member firms and the Securities Information Processors. With an enhanced view into its system NASDAQ OMX will continue to optimize its core INET trading engine, which powers 1 in 10 of the world’s security transactions.