Asian buyout firm revitalises local presence

Asian regional private equity buyout firm Affinity Equity Partners has revitalised its Australia and New Zealand presence, appointing a new head of its Sydney office and re-hiring a former long-serving team member. This follows the exits of two local heads in less than three years.

Nick Speer (pictured) has been recruited from The Riverside Company to lead the team as a partner while Mark Chudek has been re-hired from Quadrant Private Equity.

Prior to joining The Riverside Company’s Melbourne-based Australia team in 2014, Speer had worked for Catalyst Investment Managers, leaving the firm after it decided against raising a new fund. He was promoted to partner at Riverside in 2016 and more recently to managing partner alongside Simon Feiglin who established the US-based mid-market private equity firm in Australia. Speer will re-locate to Sydney for the new appointment.

Affinity’s long-time local head Brett Sutton left the firm in 2020, after leading several key exits including Velocity Frequent Flyer and TEG (APE&VCJ, Feb 2020). He left to take on the re-establishment, after an absence of nearly ten years, of an Australia and New Zealand office for CVC Asia. Under Sutton, CVC entered into negotiations on one substantial local deal, the proposed acquisition of global logistics company Brambles (ASX: BXB) but as values of ASX-listed companies fell in the global listed markets correction of the first half of last year, CVC ended negotiations. Sutton left the role of chair of CVC Australia later in the year.

Sam Johnson took over from Sutton as head of Affinity’s Sydney office in 2020. He led the exit of medical practices management software business MedicalDirector to Telstra Health in 2021. He left the firm late last year after 17 years.

Mark Chudek left Affinity to join Quadrant’s buyout team as an investment director in 2021. While at Quadrant he led the acquisition of a majority stake in healthcare equipment distributor Aidacare and was also involved in acquisitions for other Quadrant investee companies.

Affinity has one current local investment, in trade finance provider ScotPac Business Finance (formerly Scottish Pacific) which it acquired in late 2018.

Affinity was formed in 2002 by former members of the UBS Capital Asia Pacific private equity team. Sutton worked for UBS investment bank’s Asian private equity consultancy before he joined Affinity to head the firm’s Australian operations in 2004.