Other Done Deals

• Essilor is pursuing its growth strategy in Eastern Europe by acquiring a majority stake in Omega Optix. The company is an operator in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, where its prescription laboratories generate revenues of more than €10 million (£8 million)
• Live Nation, a live music company, announced today that it has completed the sale of its Motor Sports division to Feld Entertainment for $205 million (£116.2 million)
• Finance Wales has participated in an £850,000 second round of funding for Leema Acoustics, an audio equipment design and manufacturing company, providing a combined debt and equity package in exchange for a minority stake in the business
• Hexagon Human Capital, a UK’s provider of senior interim managers and a leading executive search company, has announced that it has acquired Winchester, an executive search firm, for $6 million (£3.4 million)
• Calypso Soft Drinks has completed a deal to acquire ice-lolly brand Mr Freeze from Irish confectionery group Zed Candy. The acquisition comes as part of a drive by Calypso to broaden its reach into new European markets, with production of the Mr Freeze line set to move to the Calypso factory in Wrexham
• Spark Ventures, an early-stage venture capital company, has led a £1.4 million funding round in Gemini Biomedical, a specialist healthcare company. Spark is investing a total of £700,000 alongside Gemini’s existing investors, Alliance Fund Managers (AFM), which has invested £700,000 through its MSIF Liverpool Seed Fund. It is the second time AFM has backed Gemini having previously invested £250,000 in the company in 2006
• Ip-label, an independent institute of measurement of the quality of digital services, has acquired Auditec-Newtest
• France-based IT consulting services provider Sogeti, a subsidiary of Capgemini, has acquired mechanical research company Euratec. The sum was undisclosed
• AIM-listed payment service provider DataCash Group has completed the purchase of easyDebit for £2.45 million

Deals in the pipeline

• The media accounts of sister car brands Hyundai and Kia are set to be consolidated in a $50m (£28.3 million) face-off between respective incumbents Initiative and Total Advertising
• Revolution Health Network, an online health-care business, is in discussions to merge with Everyday Health, a deal that would join two of the three most-visited online health information networks
• Taylor Wimpey, a UK house builder, has agreed to sell its Taylor Woodrow construction business a French construction group Vinci for £74 million
• US fund Hudson Clean Energy is on the verge of closing the acquisition of Helium Energy, the renewable energy division of industrial and services group Hemeretik
• BP Travel Marketing Services is set to acquire rival brochure distribution company Au Logistics