The Monthly Recap - June

We’ve reached halfway through a quite turbulent year. Inflation seems to be slowing but deals are still quiet, with the worst first half since 2019. Still plenty of drama across the sector, PwC’s government business going for $1 and UBS completing the takeover of its Swiss rival to name a couple. We will continue to watch with a keen eye how the second half of this year turns out, when will we see the central banks begin to pivot? This report outlines selected M&A deals, general market activity and significant news among the investment bank & private equity firms.

M&A

• Pilbara Minerals mandates Macquarie Capital to assist in the building of $1 billion processing plant (AFR)

• TEG sale kicked off with ready-to-use debt package available: Blackstone are the “gorilla” in the auction, in active DD (AFR)

• Allegro offloads Pizza Hut to US operator: The new owners, Flynn Restaurant Group, have never bought outside of the US (BNA)

• I-Squared Capital emerges as preferred bidder for Repurpose IT: the Downer waste management business received a bid of $250 million (AFR)

• Star Entertainment offloads Sheraton Mirage: Laundy & Karedis families pick up the asset for $192m (BNA)

• Macquarie are front runners to buy up to 50% of EnergyAustralia: the third largest electricity and gas supplier in Australia (AFR)

• PEP offered just over $700m for Hoyts: the Chinese owners value Hoyts at $1bn book value (Australian)

Other Activity

• Rugby Australia has attracted interest from a handful of PE firms: Seven firms including Silver Lake, CVC Capital & Tattarang were shortlisted to make an offer for the minority stake (AFR)

• ICG being tipped as strong contender to buy Cura Group: the private hospital operator was previously owned by ICG (Australian)

• Quadrant hires Louis Casey for new Strategic Equity Fund: the KKR director has been brought on as Partner for Quadrant’s new $300m fund (AFR)

• BlackRock raises $500m to build Australia’s biggest battery: The development of the Waratah Super Battery (SMH)

• PwC Executives are weighing up their options regarding M&A opportunities: comes following the Allegro purchase of their government consulting business (Australian)

• Lendlease raise $600m selling Barangaroo cash flows: cash flows come from its One Sydney Harbour projects (AFR)

• Pinnacle poaches Kyle Macintyre from Firetrail: he will head its $22.2 billion retail business (AFR)

• Dexus wipes $1 billion from portfolio as values slide: interest rates putting pressure on commercial property sector (AFR)

• Charter Hall picks up Vegemite Factory: the $115m purchase took 13 months to close (BNA)

• UBS & Barrenjoey joint underwriters for Infratil: the infrastructure investor raised $774m to increase ownership to 99.9% in One NZ (AFR)

• Oaktree back on the deal scene: emerging as a major buyer of distressed debt in GenesisCare, possibly more to come as high interest rates rattle the economy (Australian)

Investment Banking News

• Investment Banking fees pointed to worst first half in four years: Equity Capital Markets hit the hardest (AFR) (Australian)

• Jarden former-chief executive & current chairman set to depart: Robbie Vanderzeil announced his retirement (AFR)

• Goldman Sachs lost their top M&A Ranking: for the first time in five years, JPMorgan took number 1 spot (Bloomberg)

• Goldman Sachs & Citigroup cutting investment banking jobs: 35 cuts made across Asia (AFR)

• UBS seals Credit Suisse takeover: a raft of senior executives have been cut in the aftermath (AFR) (AFR)

• Barrenjoey hires Credit Suisse former head of Investment Banking: Angelo Scasserra who left CS in November will report to Barrenjoey’s head of Private Capital (AFR)