Neither party would comment on the sum, which is understood to have been around £5m.Gordon Bonneyman, chief executive of CDC, said: “It wasn’t realistic for one company to own two fully established businesses in private equity because of the possibility of a conflict of interest or competition. There was only one buyer of a firm like ours ­ the management ­ because of our relationship with our investors.”CDC, which is based in London, had net assets of £4.4m last December. It manages funds worth about £1bn and recently agreed to buy the electrical contracting business of Alstom of France for 750m euros (£460m).Mr Bonneyman said the group was in the early stages of planning its next fund, which he “anticipates raising some time this year”. Schroder Salomon Smith Barney has been appointed to help approach investors.HSBC Private Equity undertook seven major deals in 2000, including an institutional buyout of Caradon Plumbing, with total financing of £496m.. Infineon technologies, Europe’s second-largest microchip maker, yesterday warned that the sharp downturn in the semiconductor market would send it into the red in the third quarter. Infineon technologies, Europe’s second-largest microchip maker, yesterday warned that the sharp downturn in the semiconductor market would send it into the red in the third quarter.
The company, based in Munich, Germany, has seen sales slump 30 per cent in the three months to June and expects an operating loss of up to 600m euros (£366m).Prices have fallen and many customers are reducing stockpiles, Infineon said, as the market has weakened in the last two months.”The expected loss of 600m euros is surprisingly high because estimates had ranged between a loss of 30m euros and 100m euros,” said Friedrich Diel, a fund manager at Frankfurt Trust.Analysts predict that the global semiconductor market could shrink by up to 20 per cent in 2001.

Ulrich Schumacher, the chief executive of Infineon, said he expects the company will outperform the market as a whole.The warning for the third quarter followed a second quarter when Infineon said earnings slumped 84 per cent to 23m euros. Infineon has been hurt by the turmoil affecting the mobile phone industry, which led the world’s leading manufacturer, Nokia, to issue a profits warning last week.Order delays and cancellations from mobile phone manufacturers, Infineon’s major customers, have hurt trading, and the company does not see any clear signs of a recovery in mobile phone demand.Weak demand in the PC market has also driven the price of Infineon’s DRAM memory chip down 30 per cent since the end of March.The company said it planned to cut capital spending in 2002 by more than 1bn euros. It has already reduced spending in the current year from 2.8bn euros to 2.3bn euros. It has also frozen the hiring of new employees and will not replace those who leave the company.Shares in Infineon fell about 15 per cent in early trade on the German stock market, as the company warned that it could also record a loss in the final quarter and the year as a whole. The German electronics giant Siemens, which owns most of Infineon’s shares, was also hit, with its shares dropping about 5 per cent.The European group STMicroelectronics and Royal Philips Electronics, of the Netherlands, are among other European chipmakers to warn of a fall in profits caused by global economic slowing.. Craig Barrett, Intel’s president and chief executive officer, said he believed that the world’s biggest chipmaker will have an upswing in its business in the second half of this year. Craig Barrett, Intel’s president and chief executive officer, said he believed that the world’s biggest chipmaker will have an upswing in its business in the second half of this year.
“Our position is we perceive we’re kind of at a stable bottom of this trough, and we’re looking for some seasonality in the second half, which should give some uptick,” Mr Barrett said yesterday, on a visit to London.Intel, which sells chips to the desktop PC market, has been hit hard by slowing economic growth as well and the revaluation sparked by the dot collapse.

But Mr Barrett stressed that the outcome for the next six months was still all speculation.”I don’t think anyone has any hard data other than we’re kind of bouncing along what we perceive to be the bottom,” he said. “I’m hoping we have an upturn in the late third quarter, fourth quarter, but that’s a hope. That’s not a prediction.”Intel is in a closed period before releasing its second-quarter figures, said Mr Barrett, who was in London as part of a nine-day tour of Europe and the Middle East.He said he did not believe the European technology sector was being as heavily affected as is the US by the slowdown. “If the US has pneumonia, Europe has the sniffles,” he said, partly because Europe did not get as involved as the US in the “dot mania”.”I’m not an economist,” he said.

“My optimism is what I see going on in Europe in terms of business levels, in terms of the optimism of business people towards investment in IT…. PC sales are forecasted to be up in Europe year upon year; compared to that, PC sales have most recently been forecasted in the States to be sequentially down for the first time.”Despite the difficult times, Mr Barrett said he thought there was still more growth in the PC market. “PCs have been [declared] dead several times in our lifetime. But the PC is really Darwinian,” he said, noting that every time it had been threatened, the PC “really responded” to the challenge.However, he added his reservations about third-generation mobile phone services yesterday by saying he thought 3G was still some way off. Mobile phone operators say they could launch initial 3G services in the middle of next year, but many analysts suspect they will not appear until 2003 or 2004.Mr Barrett said he too suspected that 3G was “a bit further out than most people think”.

Conversely, he said he believed that the GPRS mobile phone service known as 2.5G had a “bright future”.British Telecommunications and Vodafone both recently launched their GPRS services to consumers in the UK. GPRS, which offers an always-on internet connection, is widely seen as the stepping stone to 3G.. Small companies are winning back a following in the investment community after years of perceived neglect, according to a new survey. Small companies are winning back a following in the investment community after years of perceived neglect, according to a new survey.
A majority of companies now feel that there is sufficient liquidity for their listed shares and that they are well enough researched and recognised by fund managers.The findings by the annual Reuters UK Smaller Companies Survey, carried out by Tempest Consultants, follow years of suggestions that small firms are overlooked by investors. But 49 per cent of finance directors questioned felt their company’s value was fully reflected in the share price, an increase from 45 per cent last time.The year to March showed a net inflow of £270m into small cap investment funds, according to Tempest, compared with a net withdrawal of £380m the previous year.The FTSE SmallCap index, which excludes the UK’s biggest 350 companies, has outperformed in the past year as fund managers have shunned telecoms and technology giants and looked for undervalued cyclicals, such as retailers, and solid, high yielding stocks.