Investing for Growth Awards

Quadrant Private Equity has been named Firm of the Year in the Australian Investment Council’s 2022 Investing for Growth Awards.  

Quadrant was the winner of two categories in the awards.

The Large Cap ($500 million and above) award went to Pacific Equity Partners (PEP) for its investment in Intellihub.

Late last year, Toronto-based global asset manager Brookfield Capital took a 50% stake in Intellihub for an estimated $1 billion.

PEP’s Secure Assets Fund acquired the Australia and New Zealand smart metering business in partnership with Switzerland-based Landis+Gyr for $267 million in 2018. The deal was a corporate carve-out from Origin Energy (ASX: ORG).

The following year, Intellihub acquired Metrix, the smart metering business of New Zealand electricity generator and retailer Mercury (NZX: MCY), for $NZ270 million.

Intellihub completed a world-first $1.45 billion Green Loan financing under the Climate Bond Initiative’s Electrical Grids and Storage criteria in 2021. The five-year facility, which has received global accolades, will fund the rapid roll-out of smart meters to homes across Australia and New Zealand.

The Upper Mid-Cap ($250 million − $500 million) award went to Quadrant for its investment in outsourced customer contact centre services business Probe CX. The company was acquired by global private equity firm KKR & Co (NYSE: KKR) for more than $1 billion in 2021.

Quadrant had initially invested in customer experience technology company Stellar which was merged with Probe Group to form Probe CX in 2020. by the time Quadrant exited Probe CX, the business had expanded to employ 15,000 people across five countries.

The Mid-Cap ($100 million − $250 million) award went to Next Capital for its investment in NZ Bus. The company was acquired early this year by Australia and New Zealand’s largest bus services operator Kinetic. No financial details of the exit were disclosed but the sale price is believed to have been around $NZ400 million.

Next Capital acquired NZ Bus from infrastructure investment company Infratil (ASX/NZX: IFT) for around $NZ230 million in a deal agreed in late 2018. Next Capital saw opportunity in the necessary conversion of the company’s diesel fleet to electric power. The project progressed substantially through the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Small-Cap (under $100 million) award went to Quadrant Private Equity for its Growth Capital Fund 1 investment in Arq Group. The digital services business was sold to Singtel Group subsidiary NCS early this year for $290 million. The deal returned more than eight times Quadrant’s initial investment.

Arq Group was originally Melbourne IT, an early internet services listing on the ASX. Over its corporate history, Arq Group acquired several service offerings creating two distinct divisions of enterprise IT services and SME IT services. Through a management buy-in in 2020, Quadrant acquired the enterprise IT services division – a collection of the old Melbourne IT business offering cloud services; along with Outware, providing digital services, and InfoReady, providing data services, along with the Arq business name. Quadrant helped Arq Group’s management transform the business into an integrated enterprise IT services business with capabilities across digital, data, cloud and managed services contracting to large companies and government enterprises in Australia and growing its footprint in New Zealand.  

The Venture Capital award went to OneVentures for its investment in online human resources, payroll services and benefits platform Employment Hero.

SEEK (ASX: SEK) led Employment Hero’s $45 million Series D round in March 2021 and this was followed by New York growth capital firm Insight Partners leading a $140 million Series E round in August 2021.

OneVentures worked extensively with the founders of Employment Hero prior to formation of the business. The firm then led a $3 million capital raising round for Employment Hero in 2016.

OneVentures continued to work with founders as they developed a fast-growing business targeting a global customer base.

NAB Ventures won the Corporate Venture Capital award for its investment in Active Pipe which provides, through a SaaS business model, an automated email marketing platform for residential real estate businesses.

NAB Ventures led a $5.9 million Series A investment round in Active Pipe in early 2018. Since then, the business has expanded, attracted new investors, entered the US market and been acquired by its US partner Moxiworks.

The Leadership in Diversity and Inclusion award was shared by Adamantem Capital and OneVentures, One Ventures receiving the award for a fourth time.

Adamantem has developed a strong diversity and inclusion policy which includes flexible working arrangements. As a minimum, the firm ensures both genders are represented on all its deal teams and requests similar requirements of its advisers.

OneVentures has a 50% gender balance across the firm with women comprising 70% of the investment team. Diversity is always considered when the firm carries out due diligence on potential deals.

The Lifetime Achievement award was awarded posthumously to OneVentures Partner Grant Chamberlain who died in an accident early this year. Chamberlain was with OneVentures for four years and worked in Australian and cross-border mergers and acquisitions for more than 20 years before that. Chamberlain was Australian head of mergers and acquisitions and financial sponsors for Bank of America Merrill Lynch prior to joining One Ventures. He is remembered for the mentorship he provided to many in the industry.

The Investing for Growth Awards were presented at the conclusion of the Australian Investment Council’s two-day annual conference on the Gold Coast, September 14-15.

Read more about the conference in the October issue of Australian Private Equity & Venture Capital Journal.

Image: An Intellihub smart meter.