The Monthly Recap - May 2024

May seemingly continued the momentum from March/April with deals chugging along despite another large deal, BHP and Anglo American, falling apart. Sponsor-led deals appear to be picking up with many funds beginning the process of offloading assets. Also some interesting plays across real estate firms with Stockland signing a partnership whilst Cromwell & Lendlease sell off international assets. This report outlines select M&A deals, general market activity and significant news amongst private equity, investment banking & debt markets. We also include a short section on recent notable market movers.

M&A

• Next Capital acquires majority stake in Scentia Education: deal at a $98m enterprise value (AFR)

• Five V Capital signs Habit Health acquisition: the $200m+ portfolio company of Livingbridge has switched hands (AFR)

• Quadrant-owned Darrell Lea on the block: sale could fetch close to $1bn (AFR) UBS likely to be on the ticket (Australian)

• Australian-listed insurance broking business PSC Insurance to be sold for $2.26bn to UK-based Ardonagh Group (Australian)

• Quadrant provides growth equity for Birch & Waite: the commercial food business is backed by Fortitude Investment Partners (AFR)

• Quadrant co-investment fund ploughs $500m into Canva: this comes with a $25bn valuation for Canva (AFR)

Other Activity

• Stockland signs $1bn land lease partnership with Invesco Real Estate: the process was run by Jarden (AFR)

• EQT closes $2.4bn Asia fund: the focus will be on technology, services & healthcare businesses (AFR)

• The market is keeping an eye on AirTrunk as initial offers begin to land: Blackstone & IFM being initial front-runners (Australian)

• Healius refinances debt to March 2027 (Australian) there has also been interest in their diagnostic imaging unit with Quadrant, Adamantem & Bain prepared for the

sale process next month (Australian)

• Brookfield in the hunt for Windlab: Forrest-backed wind-farm operator could sell for $300m (AFR)

• BHP Changes head of M&A midst takeover (Australia) Anglo American refuses more talks with a likely breakdown following $75bn bid offer (AFR)

• Adamantem doubles down on Environmental Opportunities Fund: investing in Edge Zero (power distribution technology firm) & Evnex (EV smart charger) (AFR)

• Cromwell Property offloads European business: exits offshore operation to focus solely on Australia/NZ market (AFR) Lendlease offloading their $4bn in global assets in a similar vein (AFR)

• Hysata raises $172m from large investors: Advised by Morgan Stanley, the Wollongong based green hydrogen firm has strong growth plans (AFR)

• Large interest in Neoen’s local portfolio: Bank of America shopping up to 30% with IFM, AusSuper & CDPQ part of the many interested (AFR) but sources say the deal has gone quiet towards the end of the month (Australian)

• Amber Infrastructure trying to capitalise on the data centre hype: the sudden demand for data centre exposure has interested many asset-holders (Australian)

Investment Banking & Debt Markets

• Arc Infrastructure taps bond market: CBA running the raise with a $300m, seven-year bond (Australian)

• Adamantem rules off debt deal for Legend Corp: the $70m facility was financed by its existing lenders (AFR)

• GPG renewables pushing ahead with $1.6bn refinance: the Big 4 & Japanese banks are amongst potential issuers (AFR)

• Jarden loses a number of staff following bonuses: mostly across VP/Associate level (AFR)

• Goldman Sachs to advise on the separation of WebJet (Australian)

• Amicca & Carlyle sign off $128m debt financing deal for NZ Fuel Retailer (AFR)

• Goldman Sachs M&A head confident activity is on the way back: Marissa Freund explains the cycle of M&A (AFR)

• Pimco excited by the return of bonds: Dan Ivascyn more confident with attractive bond yields and stretched equities valuations (AFR)

Notable Market Movers

There have been plenty of Notable Market Movers in May including:

• James Gorman to step down as Morgan Stanley chairman (AFR)

• Bill Trotter of Jarden steps down from his Chairman role, but will remain as director (Australian)

• Deutsche Bank’s Hugh Macdonald completed his last day in May after 16 years (AFR)

• Morgan’s head of corporate advisory, John Polinelli left in May (AFR)

• Citi lost Ollie Williams & Keith Mitchell in recent months from their DCM team (AFR)

• Jefferies equities boss Andrew Norman retired (AFR)

• Plenty of movement out of CBUS Super (AFR)

• UBS replace real estate boss Andrew Scade with analyst Grant McCasker (Australian) Brooke Johnston named Head of Corporate Lending & Structured Solutions (AFR)