MinterEllison: Substantial capital inflows for Aussie PE market

MinterEllison: Substantial capital inflows for Aussie PE market
The burgeoning Australian private equity market has seen significant inflow of capital in the 2017 financial year as investors seek quality assets.

MinterEllison’s Directions in Private Equity Report 2017 shows that competition intensified this year following a strong year in 2016, with total PE deal value in Australia was A$9 Billion with an average sell value of A$360M.
Chinese investment is changing the face of Australian PE, the report says.

"We are seeing a changing trend in investment targets by Chinese acquirers, moving away from traditional sectors such as energy and resources (ie asset heavy sectors) into more service based sectors, and we expect this trend to continue to impact the PE industry," said Ricky Casali, MinterEllison Private Equity partner.

For 2018, the firm predicts that Healthcare, Disability, Aged and Home Care Services, Technology and software, Agribusiness, and Financial Services, will be the hot sectors for private equity.
There will also be a continue of the trend for “buy and build” trend.

"The gathering strength of the 'buy-and-build' trend towards rolling-up related businesses in fragmented markets to create businesses of sufficient scale that are more likely to be exited via an IPO or trade sale has only continued,” Glen Sauer, MinterEllison Private Equity partner.

International firm expands with Saudi Arabian agreement
International firm Linklaters has entered into a formal agreement with leading Saudi Arabian firm Zamakhchary & Co.

As part of the deal two senior Linklaters lawyers will be based in Saudi Arabia.

The two firms have worked closely for several years on a number of matters with a particular focus on corporate/ M&A, capital markets, banking and Islamic finance, and project finance.

UK based firm expands Asia Pacific disputes practice
RPC has added banking and finance litigator Jonathan Crompton to its Hong Kong team.

He joins the firm as partner in the commercial disputes practice from Proskauer Rose, bringing the Hong Kong office’s partner headcount to nine.

Meanwhile, banking and finance litigation partner Jonathan Cary has relocated to London after three years in Hong Kong.