Ben Harrington of Britain's Daily Telegraph writes of 3i Group (III/LN):
Private equity firm 3i has capped a flurry of high-profile deals by snapping up transportation group Dockwise Transport for more than $700m (£357m).
3i, which recently made a £940m recommended offer for estate agent group Countrywide, has bought Dockwise Transport from Dutch shipping companies Heerema Group and Wilh. Wilhelmsen.
The linked article reports tht Dockwise has a fleet of 15 semi-submersible vessels. These are used to transport oil rigs, bridges and cranes around the world. Which makes these investments good plays on energy and infrastructure themes.
Harrington ends the piece with this:
The deal comes as 3i strives to do larger leverage buyouts. Earlier this month, it bought VNU's European business magazines, including Accountancy Age, Computing and IT Week, for £215m.
Regular readers of Controlled Greed.com know I like this company -- and its management -- a lot. That last paragraph says 3i "strives" to do larger buyouts. I'll need to keep an eye on that. One of the things I like about the company is that it excels in doing small-to-medium sized deals. My hunch is that 3i's increased assets make that somewhat of a necessity.
And that's entirely apart from the fact that Phil Yea and his team may see bigger deals as the way to go strategically.
You can read my original rationale for owning 3i Group here, though it's not the bargain it was in the first half of 2005.
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