Next Capital buys Australia's Compare Club

The size of the transaction was not disclosed. However, the Australian Financial Review put it at more than AUD 100m (USD 64m), in an article referenced by Stanton Road Partners, one of the advisors on the deal. The acquisition comes nearly 12 months after Compare Club abandoned a domestic IPO, with a target market capitalisation of AUD 175m, following market volatility.

Next Capital focuses on small and mid-market buyouts involving companies with enterprise valuations of AUD 50m to AUD 200m. The firm is currently deploying its third fund, which closed in 2016 on AUD 256m.

Compare Club was formed in 2017 by Lance Goodman and Andrew Davis by merging their two existing companies, Alternative Media and Choosewell. Both were founded in the early 2010s with an initial focus on health and life insurance. They began collaborating in 2012 and expanded coverage post-merger organically and through acquisitions such as Your Life Choices.

The company claims to receive more than 1m customer enquiries every year, and to have saved customers over AUD 40m to date across 250m insurance policy sales. Most of Australia’s major insurers, mortgage providers, and energy companies are among its partners.

Other recent activity by Next includes the sale of NZ Bus, one of New Zealand’s largest bus service operators, to OPTrust-owned Kinetic for around NZD 400m (USD 225m). The private equity firm bought NZ Bus from Infratil in 2019, paying around NZD 130m.

Stanton Road advised Compare Club's owners, while E&P and Corrs worked with Next.

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• Topics
• Australasia
• Buyouts
• Technology
• Australia
• Next Capital