PAG acquires Australia's Unispace

Financial terms were not disclosed, although The Australian Financial Review estimated it was worth A$300 million ($235 million). The company has been privately held since its inception in 2010.

Unispace, which offers end-to-end office design and construction services, claims to have completed some 5,500 workplace projects to date. Operations encompass 600 employees across 48 cities in 27 countries. Clients include Facebook, Coca-Cola and Johnson & Johnson, and PwC.

Outside of Australia, the company's existing Asian footprint includes locations in Hong Kong, Singapore, India, and New Zealand. Focus expansion markets include Greater China, Singapore, and India, where a base was set up last year. There is also expected to be interest in Japan, Korea, and Malaysia.

"Asia is a key expansion region for Unispace, so we are predicting that working alongside such an established group with unparalleled local market presence and extensive experience in the region will accelerate our growth here", Toby Rakison, the company's managing director for Asia, said in a statement.

Under the terms of the acquisition, senior Unispace executives and management, including CEO Steven Quick, will remain in their current roles.

PAG, which closed its third pan-regional fund at $6 billion in 2018, plans to leverage extensive experience in real estate and property management. This includes the acquisition of global property services company Cushman & Wakefield in 2018 alongside TPG Capital, Australian real estate player DTZ, and US counterpart Cassidy Turley.

Much of the expansion agenda is expected to focus on helping companies grapple with the short and long-term effects of COVID-19 on office operations. The idea is that the current reality of work requires a new level of open collaboration, hybrid working concepts, and technology applications such as augmented reality, robots, and smart internet-of-things systems.

"[W]hen everything else is virtual, the physical workspace only becomes all the more important as that common touchpoint," Unispace's director for India, Abi Roni Mattom, said last month. "Businesses are looking to designers to create spaces that people actually want to return to. This involves incorporating elements of hospitality into interior design – something that is now known as a resimercial transformation."

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• Topics
• Australasia
• Real estate
• Buyouts
• Australia
• PAG