Law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher has opened a new office in Dallas, which will be supported by a team of seven Partners, three of whom have just joined the business – Tom Tippetts, Brandon McCoy and Chase Proctor.

In addition, existing Partners Tony Johnston, Jessica Sheridan, Archie Fallon and Sarah McLean, who have strong private equity experience, will also be based in Dallas.

According to a press statement, each member of the team supporting the opening has experience in the Dallas market, particularly in private equity and M&A across various industries.

The Dallas opening brings Willkie’s total number of offices globally to 15, following the launch of the firm’s Munich office earlier this year, Los Angeles in 2021, Chicago in 2020, San Francisco in 2019 and Palo Alto in 2018.

Vistra has secured authorisation from the Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) to provide fund administration services from Ireland. To support the expansion, Vistra Funds Services (Ireland) has appointed Aimee Gill, CEO and Head of Fund Accounting; Paul McDonald, Head of Investor Services; and Jacqueline Evbodaghe, Head of Risk and Compliance.

According to a press statement, Vistra’s expansion into fund administration services in Ireland aligns with its strategic growth ambitions and reflects its commitment to providing a “high quality and seamless end-to-end service for its clients”.

Cap10, a specialist pan-European private equity firm based in London, has appointed Luca Bonanomi as Partner. Bonanomi has spent the last decade at Blackstone, most recently as a Managing Director in the firm’s private equity group.

In his new role, Bononami will be responsible for targeting unique investment opportunities and further establishing and scaling the Cap10 business in the mid-market space alongside existing Partners, Founding Partner Fabrice Nottin and CFO and COO Mandar Kulkarni.

Bonanami’s investing experience focuses on primary transactions across industrial niches, healthcare and life sciences, as well as business services.

Prior to Blackstone, he worked in the investment banking division at JP Morgan.

Paramount, the owner of MTV, Nickelodeon and Paramount Pictures will open negotiations with a bidding group led by Sony Pictures Entertainment and private equity giant Apollo Global after its exclusivity period with Hollywood studio Skydance ended on Friday, according to a report by The New York Times.

The report cites three unnamed people familiar with the matter in revealing that a special committee of Paramount’s board of directors met on Saturday and agreed to open discussion with Sony and Apollo, which last week submitted a non-binding letter of interest offering to acquire the company in a $26bn cash deal.

According to the NYT’s sources, the committee also decided to pursue further discussions with Skydance.

While the proposed deal would see Sony acquire a controlling stake in Paramount and Apollo a minority holding, given current US government restrictions on foreign ownership of broadcast networks, the bidding group will likely push for US-based Apollo to hold the rights to the CBS broadcast license, according to two of the sources familiar with the acquisition strategy.

Lower middle market private equity firm Silver Oak Services Partners has led the recapitalisation of US service business Beary Landscaping alongside the company’s management. 

Silver Oak invested alongside Brian Beary, Founder and CEO of Beary Landscaping, and other senior management. The existing management team will continue in their current roles and retain a significant ownership stake in the business.

In a statement, Silver Oak highlighted landscaping services as an attractive subsector for investment as part of a broader effort in facilities services, due to the recurring nature of revenue, low cyclicality and high degree of fragmentation.
Beary is actively looking for add-on acquisition opportunities.

Beary was founded in 1985 and provides recurring landscaping and snow removal services to utilities, multi-family living communities, office buildings and municipalities across Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Middle-market private credit manager Colbeck Capital Management has appointed Jared Talisman as a Managing Director and Head of Originations. 

Talisman most recently served as a Managing Director at Principal Alternative Credit, where he led and managed the sourcing, structuring and due diligence of non-sponsored private credit investments.

Prior to Principal Alternative Credit, Talisman was a Director at Stonehenge Capital. Talisman has also worked in investment banking at GrowthCap, North Sea Partners and Lehman Brothers.

European private equity firm Innova Capital has closed its latest fund, Innova/7, raising €407m, surpassing its €350m target and $400m hard cap. 

Innova/7 focuses on business and financial services, industrials and consumer & lifestyle, attracting institiutional and commercial support from Polish investors, whose total share in now over 25%, as well as elsewhere in Europe and North America.

The fund’s first investment was a 2023 acquisition of Romanian payment services provider NETOPIA Group. Innova/7 has since invested in multi-brand football merchandise distributor R-GOL; gate and handling systems provider EMI Group; wood-based boards manufacturer Pfleiderer Polska; BHS automation solutions provider Dimark Manufacture; and CloudFerro, a provider of cloud services to the European space sector.