Lucia Dore

The Australian firm has sold Healthe Care to China’s Luye Medical Group for $700 million and reportedly acquired a stake in New Zealand Pharmaceuticals.

The Australian firm has already invested about 20 percent of its latest fund, Allegro Turnaround and Special Situation Fund II, and expects to hit the fundraising trail again in 2017.

The new division will focus mainly on global buyout opportunities, Nakamura told Private Equity International.

The acquisition of the stake in the merino clothing company, described as an ‘emerging global champion’ provides the fund with the opportunity to scale the business ‘significantly’.

AVCAL CEO tells Private Equity International that it plans to respond to ILPA’s draft fee reporting template as the industry body lobbies for government reforms to incentivise superannuation funds to focus on net returns not just absolute fees.

TPG, Carlyle and KKR are reportedly among the global private equity firms interested in Big W, the discount arm of Australian retailer Woolworths.

New Zealand’s Direct Capital has sold its stake in TSG after five years during which the company trebled in size and expanded beyond Australasia.

Allocation to private equity by MySuper superannuation funds in Australia is low despite evidence showing that returns on private equity investment can be higher than other investments, according to a report from Rice Warner and AVCAL.

The majority of new commitments came from overseas investors, with sovereign wealth funds contributing 26 percent of new fundraising, which is more than superannuation funds and other investor types, according to the Australian Private Equity & Venture Capital Association (AVCAL) 2015 Yearbook.

For the largest markets in Asia - China and India - the outlook for private equity is robust, although GPs expect Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines to top China as attractive destinations for new deals, according to Bain & Company’s Asia-Pacific Private Equity Report 2015.