Excerpt from FactSet Flashwire News

Each week, FactSet Flashwire reports on movers and shakers in the deal industry, including recent deal announcements, advisory engagements, financing, and hiring. 

Listed below are the alerts for the week of January 14, 2008.  To receive this information directly via e-mail, contact Kurt Kunert at kkunert@factset.com.

Hiring Alerts

Lloyd Trotter is set to join New York buyout stop GenNx360 Capital Partners. This comes after Trotter announced that next month he will vacate his vice chairman and CEO post at the more high-profile, $28 billion GE Industrial, a subsidiary of General Electric. Gen NX360 has more than $500 million to invest in areas such as commercial security, aerospace and industrial water treatment according to BusinessWeek.

Charles Fu will join China Holdings, Inc. Fu will be the group’s new President to head up expansion plans. Fu currently serves as the vice chairman and President of Golden Autumn Holdings, a U.S. publicly traded company. Fu’s experience spans 20 years’ in foreign investment sin China, corporate finance, M&A and public offerings of China-related companies.

Allegiance Capital Corporation, an investment bank out of Dallas, has installed Debra Aaron, CPA, as vice president. In this position, Ms. Aaron will work to help close Allegiance Capital’s various complex investment banking transactions. She will also with Vice Chairman John Sloan, vice chairman, to launch the company’s new private equity fund.

Stephen Thau joined law firm Morrison & Foerster as co-chair of the firm’s international Life Sciences Group. Mr. Thau, who arrives from Heller Ehrman, will work out of Morrison & Foerster’s Palo Alto, Calif. office.

John Moriarty and Mike Avila will join Baird’s new Palo Alto office as the investment bank shores up its Technology Investment Banking team by opening its second office in the San Francisco bay area. Moriarty, a 20 year veteran in I-banking will be managing director of the new office. Avila, an IPO specialist in the Internet and Software arenas, will serve as vice president.

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Financial Advisor Alerts

Baird advised PCTEL Inc., a wireless services company, on a $59.7 million sale of its Mobility Solutions Group to Smith Micro Software Inc.

Baird advised coal energy company Benetech, Inc. in a recapitalization led by Chicago Growth Partners and Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s private equity group. As part of the transaction, Parallel Investment Partners and Carlisle Enterprises have sold their ownership; Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Baird advised Emerson Electric Co. in the sale of its Brooks Instrument to American Industrial Partners. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Banc of America Securities advised Bank of America in its proposed $4 billion acquisition of Countrywide Financial.

Jefferies & Co. advised Guardian Media Group and its partner Eden Bidco in a £1.0 billion of Emap.

Jefferies advised Genstar Capital, LLC, a life science and healthcarefocused private equity firm in its $797 million acquisition of PRA International a clinical research company.

Kaulkin Ginsberg advised PRIVEQ Capital Funds in its sale of Canadian collections firm Nor-Don Collection Network, which was bought out for an undisclosed sum by a management group led by Paul Moraes, its CEO. Nor-Don had been a portfolio company of PRIVEQ Capital Funds and GrowthWorks Canadian Fund Ltd.

Investment bank The Jordan, Edmiston Group, Inc advised Pearson Plc and the Viad Corp in their respective purchases of Money-Media and Becker Group. Pearson is a publishing and financial information company. Money- Media, is an online provider of information for the US money management industry. Viad Corp, is an exhibition service firm. Becker Group is an experiential marketing company. Terms were not disclosed for either deal.

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Legal Advisor Alerts

Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton along with law firm K&L Gates, represented Bank of America in its proposed $4 billion purchase of Countrywide Financial.

Shearman & Sterling represented Scottish and Southern Energy Plc in its €1.1 billion purchase of Airtricity Holdings Limited, a wind energy company.

Skadden represented Asset Alliance Corporation, an investment management firm, in its approximately $99 million reverse merger with Tailwind Financial Inc., which is what the firm calls a special purpose acquisition company formed to acquire one or more businesses in Canada’s financial services industry. Tailwind Financial will acquire all of the outstanding common stock of Asset Alliance in exchange for Tailwind Financial common stock.

Skadden represented American Apparel, Inc. and its affiliated companies in a $520 million sale to Endeavor Acquisition Corp.

Skadden represented JSC Sistema-Hals of Russia and Polish concern Apsys in the formation of a 50/50 strategic partnership to develop and manage retailreal estate projects in Russia. The joint venture’s first investment is the indirect acquisition of Leto City, a retail complex in Russia. Terms of the deal were undisclosed.

Skadden represented an unnamed, multi-billion dollar hedge fund in its $24 million purchase of ResMae Mortgage Corporation, which was a portfolio company of private equity firm Thomas H. Lee Partners L.P. and investment management firm Putnam, LLC during ResMae’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.

Skadden represented U.K. private equity firm Doughty Hanson & Co. in its $2.2 billion sale of Moeller GmbH to industrial machinery manufacturer Eaton Corporation.

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Financing Alerts

GE Commercial Finance Corporate has provided a $115 million assetbased credit facility to support the acquisition of Winner Steel, Inc., by a joint venture between Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK) and Duferco Group. Winner is now operating as Sharon Coating LLC. GE Capital Markets arranged the financing.

JS Group, a Pakistani financial services group, will sponsor the new $158 million JS Private Equity Fund, which will focus specifically on domestic investments despite political unrest in the Asian nation.

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