Category: News

Brazos Private Equity Partners has exited its investment in Strategic Equipment and Supply Corporation, selling the company to TriMark USA. TriMark is a portfolio company of Audax Group. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The firm said that the sale represents the final realization of Brazos Equity Fund I, which closed in 2000 with $250 million.

PRESS RELEASE
Brazos Private Equity Partners, LLC, a leading Dallas-based private investment firm, announced today the sale of Strategic Equipment and Supply Corporation (SESC), one of the leading providers of foodservice equipment, supply and design solutions, to TriMark USA, a portfolio company of Audax Group. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The sale of SESC represents the final realization of Brazos Equity Fund I, which closed in 2000 with capital commitments totaling $250 million. Distributions by Fund I have substantially exceeded invested capital, a result that is further enhanced through the SESC exit. Brazos is currently investing Brazos Equity Fund III (“Brazos III”) with capital commitments totaling $715 million.

Randall Fojtasek, Co-Founding Partner and Co-CEO of Brazos, said: “We are very proud of what we accomplished since acquiring SESC in 2005. In partnership with SESC’s outstanding management team we built the company into one of the five largest foodservice distributors in the United States through geographic expansion and the addition of key customers such as Outback Steakhouse, Logan’s Roadhouse and Ruby Tuesday. The long-term perspective we bring to our investments was rewarded with an outstanding return for our investors. We wish Marty Monnat and his team all the best as they join TriMark and contribute to its continued success as the foodservice distribution industry leader.

“The sale of SESC is also a momentous occasion for our firm because it brings to completion our first fund investment effort, which began in 2000. During the years since we closed Fund I, we have worked with so many great companies and management teams who have been partners in the fund’s success. We are particularly grateful to our Fund I limited partners for their confidence and support of our firm in its early years. Many of those early investors are still investing with us and have been an important part of our firm over the past 13 years and today as we continue to invest our third fund,” Mr. Fojtasek added.

Martin Monnat, President and Chief Executive Officer of SESC, said, “On behalf of the SESC management team and all of our employees, I thank Brazos for its extraordinary contributions towards the development of our company. We are very excited about our future as part of the industry leading foodservice distribution enterprise, an achievement enabled by Brazos.”

About Brazos Private Equity Partners, LLC
Brazos Private Equity Partners is a Dallas-based private equity firm that manages approximately $1.4 billion of equity capital. Brazos focuses on investments in leading middle-market consumer, healthcare, commercial & industrial, and business services companies, seeking to partner with outstanding management teams and/or families of closely-held businesses to maximize value. Brazos has been one of the most active middle-market private equity investment firms over the past decade, having completed 69 acquisitions, including 25 platform investments.

The post Brazos Private Equity Partners Exits Strategic Equipment and Supply Corp. appeared first on peHUB.

If there’s one thing that the internet lacks, it’s quality handwritten content. For decades, computers have been slowly but surely killing off the need for actually writing anything down. Lucky for us, Wolfram Alpha is here to bring a little bit of handwritten flair to the web.

Today, Wolfram Alpha is introducing the Wolfram Alpha Handwritten Knowledge Engine, which they describe as a “more personal way of delivering computed answers.”

Ok, it’s an April Fools’ joke. But it’s a clever one.

According to a blog post, each of your queries will be transcribed and illustrated by a real live human!

“We had a thought not long ago that it would be nice to get you (the internet) a gift. One of those “just because” things to spread a bit of happiness around the world. Conventional wisdom holds that the best gifts are handmade. But making gifts by hand for over 2.2 billion people? It was a daunting challenge,” says Wolfram Alpha.

But they pulled it off, and are now offering “artisanal answers.”

Like this important question about whether or not they are, in fact, Skynet.

Even mathematical computations get the handwritten treatment.

For more April Fools’ Day fun, check here.

Elwin Wilson, a former Ku Klux Klan member who later apologized for his racist actions, has died.

According to an Associated Press report, Wilson died at a South Carolina hospital at the age of 76. Wilson’s wife, Judy, related that he had struggled with hearth and lung problems for years, and recently contracted the flu.

It isn’t often that members of the Ku Klux Klan publicly renounce their views on race, but Wilson made news with a very public apology in 2009. He apologized directly to John Lewis, a U.S. Representative from Georgia. Wilson had reportedly taken part in a beating which included Lewis during a civil rights march in the early 60s.

Wilson admitted to being a Ku Klux Klan member in the past, but stated that he could not reconcile his religious beliefs with his racism. He recalled that he attended cross burnings, hung effigies, and threw fruit at black men during his time with the Klan.

Lewis has stated that Wilson’s apology was meaningful to him as it was the first apology he received for the violence he encountered during his time as a freedom rider in 1961.

It’s strange how some of Google’s most innovative products always seem to be introduced on April 1.

Google introduced Google Nose beta today, which taps into Google’s Knowledge Graph to help users search for smells they encounter.

With Google Nose, Google says you can “go beyond type, talk, and touch for a new notation of sensation.” Google’s “Aromabase” contains over 15 million scentibytes.

Here’s what the Knowledge Graph results look like with Google Nose:

The technology utilizes Android’s ambient odor detection feature. Clicking “Smell” will transmit the smell for you.

As explained in the video, Google Nose is even capable of answering: What does a ghost smell like?

Google Nose would probably tie in well with that brain interface Matt Cutts was recently talking about.

This is not the first time Google has worked with the sense of smell. In 2008, on April 1, Google introduced Scratch and Sniff ebooks.

Try Google Nose here.

Kees Moeliker: How a dead duck changed my lifeIn the days leading up to TED2013, we at the TED Blog revealed the best props at TEDs past and showed you the speakers who’d brought animals on stage with them. Little did we know that, on the day two of the conference, we’d meet a speaker who’d combine both.

In today’s talk, given at TED2013, Kees Moeliker illuminates how finding a dead duck one summer day changed the course of his professional life. It’s an incredible, hilarious and unexpected story. And to highlight the importance of said duck, Moeliker physically brought it on stage with him. Dead for nearly eighteen years (Moeliker found this duck outside of the Natural History Museum Rotterdam, where he works, in 1995 and had him stuffed for posterity), Moeliker took the taxidermied duck out of a plastic bag and passed it to a brave audience member.

Below, see the hilarity that ensued as this odd artifact made the rounds.

 

Sure we’re all eagerly awaiting the arrival of the hottest smartphone of the year, but that hasn’t stopped the gang at XDA from bringing the world glorious root capabilities. That’s why the gang has gone ahead and showcased its ROM is packaged with ROOT&Busybox into an image flashable via Odin. As exciting as it is to see the Galaxy S 4 being on its way to truly realizing its full potential, the gang at XDA highlights that the root method is only for the octa-core Exynos 5 variant of the smartphone, meaning the rest of us who will be on the Snapdragon version will be out of luck… for now at least.

Now if we can only get some certainty that we’ll get some custom goodies taking advantage of the Galaxy S 4′s root, we’ll be in business.

source:  XDA

Come comment on this article: Samsung Galaxy S 4 gets rooted… well the Exynos 5 Octa version at least

PLI Holdings Inc., an affiliate of Med Opportunity Partners, has acquired Pfanstiehl Laboratories. The seller was publicly traded Ferro Corp. The deal included a $16.9 million cash payment and an earn-out incentive payment of up to $8 million. Med Opportunity Partners is a private equity firm based in Greenwich, Connecticut.

PRESS RELEASE
Ferro Corporation (NYSE: FOE, the “Company”) announced today that it has completed the sale of its pharmaceuticals business, Pfanstiehl Laboratories, to PLI Holdings, Inc., an affiliate of Med Opportunity Partners, LLC. Consideration was comprised of a $16.9 million cash payment and an earn-out incentive payment of up to $8 million, payable over two years based on attained earnings targets. In addition, the Company retained certain tax benefits with an estimated value of approximately $5 million. Ferro’s pharmaceuticals business generated segment income of $2.4 million in 2012.

“On behalf of everyone at Ferro, I thank the Pfanstiehl team for their many contributions. I am confident they will have exciting opportunities ahead. I also extend our thanks to our advisors on the transaction. The sale announced today is the culmination of an extended period of marketing the business.”

The divestiture follows the Company’s February 6, 2013, sale of its solar pastes assets and marks the continued execution of Ferro’s strategy to divest non-core businesses and drive earnings growth and profitability from its core Performance Materials and Performance Chemicals businesses.

“The sale of our pharmaceuticals business is another important milestone in our value creation strategy. The Ferro portfolio now is more fully concentrated in our core technologies in coatings and color and glass science, polymer science, and organic synthesis,” said Peter Thomas, Interim President and Chief Executive Officer of Ferro. “Together with our previously announced initiatives to reduce costs by more than $50 million, the successful sale of our solar pastes assets, and the additional financial flexibility gained by amending our credit facility, today’s announcement reflects the Board’s and management’s commitment to drive shareholder value from our Performance Materials and Performance Chemicals businesses. We will remain focused on improving return on invested capital and cash flow by streamlining operations, reducing operating costs, and pursuing select growth opportunities. We are energized by the progress we’re making and committed to reaching our value creation objectives.”

Mr. Thomas added, “On behalf of everyone at Ferro, I thank the Pfanstiehl team for their many contributions. I am confident they will have exciting opportunities ahead. I also extend our thanks to our advisors on the transaction. The sale announced today is the culmination of an extended period of marketing the business.”

The Company was advised by KeyBanc Capital Markets and Calfee, Halter & Griswold LLP.

About Ferro Corporation

Ferro Corporation (http://www.ferro.com) is a leading global supplier of technology-based performance materials and chemicals for manufacturers. Ferro products are sold into the building and construction, automotive, appliances, electronics, household furnishings, and industrial products markets. Headquartered in Mayfield Heights, Ohio, the Company has approximately 4,780 employees globally and reported 2012 sales of $1.8 billion.

About Pfanstiehl

Pfanstiehl is a leading technology-based provider of specialized products and services for niche pharmaceutical and biotechnological applications. Pfanstiehl produces commercial quantities of high-purity, low-endotoxin sugars utilized as injectable excipients and for cell culture media and protein stabilization as well as high-potency active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), including cytotoxic actives. The business is located in Waukegan, Illinois, and has 80 employees.

About Med Opportunity Partners, LLC

Med Opportunity Partners LLC (http://www.MedOpportunity.com) is a private equity firm that invests in healthcare companies at their growth stage. It is based in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Cautionary Note on Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements in this press release may constitute “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Federal securities laws. These statements are subject to a variety of uncertainties, unknown risks and other factors concerning the Company’s operations and business environment. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those suggested by these forward-looking statements and that could adversely affect the Company’s future financial performance include the following:

demand in the industries into which Ferro sells its products may be unpredictable, cyclical or heavily influenced by consumer spending;
Ferro’s ability to successfully implement its value creation strategy;
Ferro’s ability to successfully implement and/or administer its cost-saving initiatives, including its restructuring programs, and to produce the desired results, including projected savings;
restrictive covenants in the Company’s credit facilities could affect its strategic initiatives and liquidity;
Ferro’s ability to access capital markets, borrowings, or financial transactions;
the effectiveness of the Company’s efforts to improve operating margins through sales growth, price increases, productivity gains, and improved purchasing techniques;
the availability of reliable sources of energy and raw materials at a reasonable cost;
currency conversion rates and economic, social, regulatory, and political conditions around the world;
Ferro’s presence in certain geographic regions, including Latin America and Asia-Pacific, where it can be difficult to compete lawfully;
increasingly aggressive domestic and foreign governmental regulations on hazardous materials and regulations affecting health, safety and the environment;
Ferro’s ability to successfully introduce new products or enter into new growth markets;
sale of products into highly regulated industries;
limited or no redundancy for certain of the Company’s manufacturing facilities and possible interruption of operations at those facilities;
Ferro’s ability to complete future acquisitions or dispositions, or successfully integrate future acquisitions;
competitive factors, including intense price competition;
Ferro’s ability to protect its intellectual property or to successfully resolve claims of infringement brought against the Company;
management of Ferro’s general and administrative expenses;
Ferro’s multi-jurisdictional tax structure;
the impact of the Company’s performance on its ability to utilize significant deferred tax assets;
the effectiveness of strategies to increase Ferro’s return on capital;
the impact of operating hazards and investments made in order to meet stringent environmental, health and safety regulations;
stringent labor and employment laws and relationships with the Company’s employees;
the impact of requirements to fund employee benefit costs, especially post-retirement costs;
implementation of new business processes and information systems;
the impact of interruption, damage to, failure, or compromise of the Company’s information systems;
exposure to lawsuits in the normal course of business;
risks and uncertainties associated with intangible assets, including the final amount of impairment and other charges described in this press release;
Ferro’s borrowing costs could be affected adversely by interest rate increases;
liens on the Company’s assets by its lenders affect its ability to dispose of property and businesses;
Ferro may not pay dividends on its common stock in the foreseeable future; and
other factors affecting the Company’s business that are beyond its control, including disasters, accidents, and governmental actions.

The risks and uncertainties identified above are not the only risks the Company faces. Additional risks and uncertainties not presently known to the Company or that it currently believes to be immaterial also may adversely affect the Company. Should any known or unknown risks and uncertainties develop into actual events, these developments could have material adverse effects on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

This release contains time-sensitive information that reflects management’s best analysis only as of the date of this release. The Company does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect future events, information or circumstances that arise after the date of this release. Additional information regarding these risks can be found in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the period ended December 31, 2012.

The post Ferro Sells Pfanstiehl Laboratories appeared first on peHUB.

Fans of The Walking Dead might enjoy this particular April Fools’ gag from Google, introducing the “Levity Algorithm” for Google Apps.

The product manager in this video looks just a little familiar, right?

The algorithm is designed to make the work week go a “little bit smoother”.

“Created in partnership with legendary improv comedians from Chicago’s Second City Communications, the Levity Algorithm is carefully tuned to help you spice up even the most boring of work days,” says product manager Steve Daley (played by The Walking Dead’s Steven Yeun). “Send happier emails, hold more engaging meetings, write more mind-blowing presentations — and above all, turn those frowns upside down.”

More April Fools’ fun here.

 

HTC has officially taken the wraps off of the Desire P smartphone, its latest lower-end mid-range device for folks out over in Taiwan. The device comes with a zippy dual-core Qualcomm chip, 768MB of RAM, a 4-inch display and an 8MP camera— all crammed into a fairly sleek and attractive package that’s sure to catch the eye of folks out there. When all’s said and done, the Desire P is more or less a One SV smartphone minus the 4G LTE capabilities.

The device will be launched with wireless carrier Chunghwa Telecom for a modest price of $365, though HTC has given no indication that it will be released anywhere else at this time.

source: PhoneArena

Come comment on this article: HTC officially unveils its Desire P smartphone

BetaNews has learned that Facebook’s “new home on Android” is not a phone, as widely rumored, but — get this — a smartwatch. A source with knowledge of the social network’s April 4 event contacted me after reading colleague Mihaita Bamburic‘s Saturday post: “I’m a gadget lover who doesn’t love smartwatches“.

I simply couldn’t believe that, so I contacted a truly trusted source, who acknowledged — after lots of coaxing — that the watch tip is genuine. I still didn’t believe and contacted another source, who wasn’t immediately available because of Easter celebrations. Like Mihaita, I think smartwatches are a dumb idea. About an hour ago, he (or it she) confirmed the Android timepiece will be Facebook’s show-stopping announcement.

If you listen to the Internet rumor rabble, everyone from Apple to Google to Samsung is developing a smartwatch, but Facebook could have the distinction of getting to market first. My last source shared a few nuggets of information — he had been drinking (who does that to celebrate Easter). The watch is huge, but he wouldn’t say how much other than to ask: “Have you seen those big Russian watches? Like them but thicker”.

The Facebook watch uses voice dictation and response. For example, using a Bluetooth earpiece, you can command the timepiece to read back Wall posts, dictate comments or “Like” something by simply saying the word.

Sorry, Mr. Zuckerberg, but the design concept makes no sense. Simpler and sounder approach: Develop a way for consumers to easily use a Bluetooth earpiece to control Facebook on a smartphone and let a voice-response system read back while they walk or work, instead of lifting the wrist to see or hear.

Something else: People aren’t used to recharging their watches every few days. Unless Facebook provides solar charging, it’s hard to see how battery life wouldn’t be a problem, particularly when adding Bluetooth — and a cellular radio.

One of my sources gave a kind of “wink, wink” response regarding PC connectivity. She strongly insinuated that Facebook’s watch wouldn’t need to sync to a computer, which must mean over-the-air. That suggests 2G radio at least. The only other way I see is FM, which Microsoft used for its partners’ line of smartwatches in the last decade.

Facebook has completed final technical, but not cosmetic, designs. The company plans to give out prototypes to news media attending this week’s event and launch a preview program similar to Google’s CR-48 Chromebook back in December 2010. The search and information giant gave out 60,000 computers during a broad beta test before Acer and Samsung released the first commercial models about six months later.

None of my sources would say when Facebook’s smartwatch would be available to purchase, but one hinted long before the holidays. Assuming 6 months from public prototypes to commercial products, like Google and Chromebooks, that works out to September release, if not sooner.

I’m dubious about Facebook’s plans — or smartwatches from anyone. Microsoft brought a brilliantly-conceived smartwatch strategy to market in the mid-Noughties along with well-known watchmakers like Fossil, Suunto and Swatch — and still the project fissiled. Using FM radio to keep constant connection assured users could get news, weather and other info anytime and anywhere.

But recharging was the deal breaker. Then there was behavior. Look how many people no longer carry watches because they get time from phones they regularly check? This was true during the dumb phone era, when Microsoft and partners released high-tech timepieces. The company failed in this market long before mobiles — where “smart” makes more sense — offer as much information as they do today.

April Fools! If Facebook really releases a smartwatch, then the joke’s on me.

Data center automation company Univa, announced the release of Univa Grid Engine Version 8.1.4 with 46 new updates, and enhanced support for Intel Xeon Phi Coprocessors.

“Our latest Univa Grid Engine version 8.1.4 has been completely customer driven and is the largest update of the last 10 months,” said Fritz Ferstl, CTO Univa Corporation and father of Grid Engine. “We are leading the industry right now in converged infrastructures supporting Big Data and Big Compute, and our customers rely on Univa Grid Engine to manage mission-critical applications – so we make sure to always stay close to them in order to support their needs.”

The Univa Grid Engine is a distributed resource management software platform, which has added over 525 updates since Univa took over the management of Grid Engine. It supports commercial enterprises in the industries of Industrial Manufacturing, Oil and Gas, Energy, Life Sciences, Biology and Semiconductors for enterprise-grade, big data applications. Earlier this year the company announced product support for ARM-based servers.

New key feature updates include an improved load collection tool for Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors to ensure jobs run on the least loaded cores. It also features extended memory usage metrics for multi-threaded applications and scheduler performance enhancements.

Coprocessors like Intel’s Xeon Phi supplement the performance of the primary processor, and have become a common feature in the fastest supercomputers.  Phi is the new brand for products using Intel’s Many Integrated Core (MIC) architecture for highly parallel workloads.

Last week Univa CTO Fritz Ferstl was interviewed by InsideHPC.com for a Grid Engine State of the Union.

In light of Chevrolet releasing the new 2014 Camaro Z/28 at this weeks New York International Auto Show, I thought I’d post up a little video that pays homage to the Camaro’s of the past. Covering all five generations, the video is nicely shot and makes us understand why people have been falling in love with these cars for almost 50 years.

Source: Vimeo.com

Skype is pretty much everywhere these days. Millions of people around the world use it to communicate with friends and family. What are you going to do when you’re no longer on the planet though? How will you communicate with your family as you’re traveling to Alpha Centauri?

To further the cause of space exploration and communication, Skype announced a new service that lets space explorers connect to those who matter most. It’s called Skype into Space and it brings the “best parts of Skype… into the cosmos.”

Of course, communicating in space does present some unique challenges so Skype is introducing a number of new features to accomodate space travel: