Last word

Blackstone has agreed to sell its German cable-television, internet and telephone service Kabel Baden-Wurttemberg (Kabel BW) to private equity firm EQT Partners of Sweden for €1.3bn.

The deal was struck a day after Blackstone agreed to pay €2.68bn for a 4.5% stake in Deutsche Telekom, which competes directly with Kabel BW.

Sources say that the sale of Kabel BW had been in the works before Blackstone struck a deal to buy the stake in Deutsche Telekom from the German government.

But the larger Deutsche Telekom deal, which could have put Blackstone in an awkward position of having big investments in competitors in the same market, helped push the Kabel deal to be completed swiftly.

0UK-listed fund management firm Schroders has closed its third fund of private equity funds at €422m (US$523.2m), which was about 50% more than its previous effort.

The Schroder Private Equity Fund of Funds III will invest in about 20 underlying funds and has already committed 200m to nine vehicles. SPEFOF I and II raised €242m and €285m, respectively.

Andrew Williams, chief executive of SVG Advisers, the fund management and advisory business of also-listed SVG Capital, which will advise on SPEFOF III’s investments, said: “The innovative structure has meant that a broad range of investors have gained exposure to the asset class.”

Similar to its predecessor funds, SPEFOF III is listed on the Irish Stock Exchange and has different shares classes with management fees reflecting the sums invested. The A class has minimum investment of €125,000 with a management fee of 1.5%. This fee drops to 1% for a €1m investment and 0.75% for €10m.