Advent raises $10.4b fund for 30-35 investments

Advent raises $10.4b fund for 30-35 investmentsAdvent International Corp. raised $10.4 billion for its sixth and biggest private equity fund amid a dearth of leveraged buyouts. The firm, based in London and Boston, raised the cash from 160 investors including the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and AlpInvest Partners of the Netherlands, Advent said. The fund will make 30 to 35 investments in businesses valued at $300 million to $1.5 billion. Advent raised the money after the surge in US subprime mortgage defaults roiled the credit markets that private equity firms depend on for loans to finance their deals. (Bloomberg)

Staples Inc. chairman and chief executive Ronald Sargent was awarded compensation valued at $30.3 million in 2007, as the world's largest office products supplier continued to put distance between itself and its lagging US rivals, Office Depot and OfficeMax. The bulk of Sargent's compensation came from stock and option awards totaling 750,000 shares under an incentive package whose value depends on how well Staples performs through 2011, according to a regulatory filing by the Framingham company. The awards carried an estimated value of $19.6 million when they were awarded in March of last year. Sargent was awarded $8.5 million in additional stock and options last year. Sargent was paid a $1.1 million salary, up 3.6 percent from a year earlier. The 2007 compensation total is more than three times his $9.9 million in 2006. (AP)

Microbia Inc., a 10-year-old biotech company based in Cambridge, has changed its name to Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Inc. The privately held company has raised $231 million in private equity financing and is developing several drugs, including linaclotide to treat irritable bowel syndrome and other gastrointestinal disorders. (Todd Wallack)

State Street Corp., the world's largest asset manager for institutions, hired Maureen Miskovic to the new position of chief risk officer, the latest senior appointment following losses on subprime-mortgage securities. Miskovic, a member of the Boston-based bank's board of directors since December 2006, was most recently a senior adviser to Eurasia Group, a research and consulting firm in New York. She will resign from the board and will report directly to State Street chief executive Ronald Logue, the company said. (Bloomberg)

According to a person briefed on the talks, Facebook is completing a settlement of a suit brought by three former Harvard students who contend that the original idea for the social networking site belonged to them. The person declined to discuss the proposed terms of the settlement. Facebook officials declined to comment. So did officials from ConnectU, a social networking site started by the brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra. The ConnectU founders were contemporaries at Harvard with Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder. The person briefed on the negotiations, who declined to be identified because the deal was not yet completed, said motions to dismiss the case against Facebook were expected "within weeks." (New York Times News Service)

"Project Runway," the reality TV series produced by Weinstein Co., plans to switch from NBC Universal's Bravo cable channel to Lifetime Networks for its sixth season beginning in November. NBC Universal, a unit of General Electric Co., filed a lawsuit seeking a chance to bid against Lifetime, a joint venture between Hearst Corp. and Walt Disney Co. The Emmy-nominated series is a reality competition for aspiring fashion designers. (Bloomberg)

Hewlett-Packard Co., the number one seller of personal computers, said it's entering a new class of miniature laptops, a fledgling market already populated with products from Intel Corp., the world's largest semiconductor company, and Asustek Computers Inc., the world's largest maker of computer motherboards. The machines are so new the industry hasn't settled on a name for the low-cost, scaled-down laptops used primarily for surfing the Internet and performing other basic functions like word processing. HP says its new machines, Mini-Notes, which go on sale this month, are an important piece of the company's effort to build market share in schools. Mini-Notes weigh less than 3 pounds with a screen that measures 8.9 inches diagonally. The machines start at under $500 for a Linux-based model. (AP)