Finance

Boston-based private equity company Advent International has finally executed a deal to sell Germany’s leading bookselling chain Thalia. The lead buyer is Germany’s Herder family, which has been in the publishing business for over 200 years. The Kreke family continues to hold a minority share. (They founded Thalia’s parent company Douglas Holding, and held a 20 percent share in Douglas alongside Advent; Douglas itself, a beauty retailer, was spun back out to CVC Capital Partners last year, so it was only a matter of time before Thalia was sold as well. In turn, the Herder’s had sold their bookstore group to […]

As you surely know already, the UK’s surprise vote in favor of exiting the European Union has left people all over the world trying to figure out the ramifications of a process that could take 2 years or more to actually execute. The most immediate impact is in financial markets, which abhor uncertainty and look to put a price on the outcome of that process before it has even begun. And the trading effect is twofold — altering equity values worldwide, primarily downward, while also driving currency exchange fluctuations, there primarily lowering the value of the British pound against other […]