Private Equity Week Wire for Tuesday 10/2

GARDEN CITY, NY — CDKnet.com completed its second private equity financing. The transaction was entered intoo with Optical Systems, LLC, a company engaged in the design and development of optoelectronic devices for the marine safety marketplace. The technology is designed to spot floating hazards in and under the water and alert the driver of the vessel to their presence.NEW YORK?DB Capital Partners, the private equity arm of Deutsche Bank, today announced that Prestige Brands International, one of its portfolio companies, has acquired the Comet brand from Procter & Gamble. Comet is a market leader in the household cleansers segment. Prestige Brands was formed in 1999 for the purpose of buying and marketing popular consumer brand name products. Prestige?s first acquisition in November 1999 was Prell shampoo. Subsequently, Prestige Brands purchased Chloraseptic throat sprays and lozenges in March 2000.SEATTLE — Aventail, a leading extranet and VPN serviceprovider, announced today that it has received an additional $7 million inprivate equity capital from SAIC Venture Capital Corporation (SAIC VCC), asubsidiary of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), andother investors. This is in addition to the company’s recent announcementthat it had closed $48 million in funding in one of the Pacific Northwest’slargest private equity rounds so far this year. The additional capitalbrings the final close of Aventail’s Series E funding round to $55 million.SAN FRANCISCO — Venture Strategy Partners, an earlystage venture capital firm, announced today an expansion of its seniormanagement team naming Annie Williams, former Senior Vice President,Marketing at CNET, Inc., as Chief Marketing Officer.

Ms. Williams, who most recently served as Chief Marketing Officer ateVolution Global Partners, will oversee the marketing and corporatecommunications functions at Venture Strategy Partners. In addition, shewill provide ongoing strategic advice to Venture Strategy Partners?portfolio companies.NEW YORK — Private Equity investments have traditionally been considered illiquid, however, turbulent economic conditions are causing institutions to seek early returns prior to the term of a partnership. Dropping valuations, inflated private equity allocations, economic uncertainty, and active management of portfolios driven by fiduciary responsibilities of limited partners are among the primary motivators behind this trend. The secondary market for private equity funds has quadrupled over the past four years and exceeded $2 billion in 2000.

Strategic Research Institute is proud to announce a one-day conference on October 15th at the Grand Hyatt in San Francisco to capitalize on this trend. The event will bring together buyers and sellers to examine the growing secondary market for private equity funds, as well as other liquidity alternatives. Topics to be examined include: what is driving the growth of the secondary market; perspectives from buyers and sellers; performance measurement standards; the trend towards securitization of private equity; and sourcing deals online. The inaugural conference held this past June in New York City drew over 100 attendees. TETERBORO, N.J. –BEI Medical Systems Company, Inc. (NASDAQ: BMED), announced today that it completed a final closing on September 28, 2001 of a previously announced private placement and received an additional $435,000 from entities associated with the Delta Opportunity Funds, increasing the total of its private placement to $7.6 million from $7.2 million.

The increased financing comes from the sale of an additional 117,948 common shares and 66,048 one year and two year term purchase warrants. In total, under the September 4, 2001 terms, the company sold 2,070,221 common shares and 1,159,309 warrants exercisable at $3.688 per unit. The transaction was led by Brookside Capital Partners Fund, LP, the public markets affiliate of Bain Capital. The warrants issued on September 28, 2001 consisted of 37,742 one year warrants and 28,306 two year warrants. The company has also agreed to register for resale on Form S-3, under the Securities Act of 1933, the shares of common stock sold in the financing and the shares of common stock issuable upon exercise of the warrants.SWEDEN — Christer Bergquist, managing director of Swedish venture capital company Drax Holding, will resign at the company’s extraordinary shareholders’ meeting on October 31, 2001 following planned reorganisations in the company. Bergquist will remain in the company as board member. He will be succeeded by the present Business Management department head Rey Langels. Drax Holdings plans to sell its subsidiaries BCCI, Explachange and Affarskraft to employees as part of its strategy to cease venture capital activities and to concentrate on IT consulting. The company will also change its name to Prosolutions.MINNEAPOLIS — RemotePipes, Inc., an emerging leader in remote Internet access solutions today announced the acquisition of more than one million dollars in new equity financing. Funding from Nortel Networks (NYSE: NT), Prairie Ventures, SLWK Ventures and private investors completed the round of financing. The additional funding completes the company’s patent-pending Secure Remote Access Content Delivery Platform(TM) in its new data center in Chicago, with the balance of the funding to be used for operational expenses. The Secure Remote Access Content Delivery Platform is the underlying technical architecture that extends an additional layer of security and redundancy to RemotePipes solutions in order to achieve five-nines (99.999%) reliability. The Chicago data center complements the company’s existing data center in Denver to provide RemotePipes customers with fast connections and maximum uptime. LONDON –NetShift Software Limited, a UK-based company developing and marketing solutions for self-service kiosks and other public access devices, today announced that it has secured a commitment of US$5m in expansion capital from Shell Internet Ventures BV (Shell Ventures). The funds will be used to extend the marketing of NetShift’s solutions into new geographic markets and to accelerate development of the company’s products and services.

For yesterday’s Wire, click here