Ex-TPG Asia head Ben Gray targets $1.5b Australia fund

The impending launch – marketing will not start until the fourth quarter – was first reported by Bloomberg. Sources have also confirmed the plans to AVCJ. Gray is working with Simon Harle, who spent around 10 years with TPG in Australia and before that was a colleague of Gray’s at Credit Suisse. TPG is expected to hold a small minority stake in the new firm and collaborate on certain deals.

Gray joined the private equity firm in 2004 and became co-head of Asia in 2013. He has led some of TPG’s largest deals in Asia, including department store chain Myer, hospital operator Healthscope and poultry producer Ingham’s Enterprises. The first three all went public in Australia and a fourth portfolio company, gas and electricity supplier Alinta Energy, is expected to follow suit.

Should Gray achieve his target, the fund would be by some distance the largest debut private equity vehicle raised for Australia and New Zealand. It would place the firm at the top of the domestic middle market by fund size, alongside Pacific Equity Partners, which closed its fifth fund in late 2015 at A$2.1 billion.

TPG is currently in the market with its seventh pan-Asian fund, targeting between $4 billion and $4.5 billion. Joel Thickins, formerly of CHAMP Private Equity, now leads the firm’s Australia and New Zealand activities.

• Tweet  
• Facebook  
• LinkedIn  
• Google plus  
• Save this article  
• Send to  

• Topics
• Australasia
• Fundraising
• Buyout
• Australia
• TPG Capital