News

Entrepreneur Mike Ashley is causing a stir with the full-list float of Sports Direct. Claiming to be the country’s biggest sports retailer by revenue and operating profit (even bigger than JJB Sports), Sports Direct operates through the Sports World, Sports Direct and Lillywhites.

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Broker HB Corporate is lining up an early March debut for Dual Holdings, an intriguing technology-focused workforce management venture. It plans to profit from the legislative creep impacting upon the nation’s employers.

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Pakistan coal venture Oracle Coalfields is seeking £1.2 million on the reinvigorated PLUS. Entrepreneurs Shahrukh Khan, 35, and Conrad Windham, 23, have launched their 5p-a-share offer, with backing from small company investor Bruce Rowan and St Helen’s Capital as adviser.

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Close Growth Capital (CGC), a provider of equity and debt funding, has backed the £32 million secondary management buy–out (MBO) of A-Gas International, a global distributor of speciality gases and chemicals to the refrigeration and insulation foam industries.

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Ingenious has invested £2 million through its two music VCTs to support the next album of the dance act Prodigy.

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Director-General of the Confederation of British Industry Richard Lambert has praised private equity houses, saying they offer a compelling model to improve business performance which has seen companies return to the stock markets in far more robust shape than when they were previously listed.