Quadrant spins Australia car services business into continuation fund

Future Fund, Roc Partners, and wealth management platform LGT Crestone are among the incoming investors, while LPs in Quadrant Private Equity No. 4 – which closed on AUD 850m in 2014 and made the original investment in MotorOne – were given the opportunity to roll over their interests or exit.

The transaction gives MotorOne an enterprise value of AUD 450m. The fund close was first reported by the Australian Financial Review and has been confirmed to AVCJ by a source close to the situation. 

The company, formerly known as WorldMark Group, has been under private equity ownership since 1999. RMB Capital Partners – now Pemba Capital – sold the business to South Africa’s WesBank in 2014 and WesBank passed it on to Navis Capital Partners in 2010. Navis sold the automotive retail training and consulting assets to MXI International and the after-sales service unit went to Quadrant.

MotorOne is one of Australia’s largest distributors of automotive after-market products, offering a range of window tint, accessories, and protection for paintwork and internal fabrics. When Navis exited the business, it claimed 80% penetration of the country’s new and used car dealerships. Current plans are said to include setting up a network of panel repair shops.

This is the third single asset continuation fund launched in Australia since the start of the year. In April, China-focused Hosen Capital closed a USD 280m vehicle designed to extend its ownership of Kilcoy Global Foods, an Australia-headquartered beef processing business it first backed in 2013.

More recently, Pacific Equity Partners transferred a 50% interest in smart electricity meter business Intellihub to a AUD 1.5bn continuation fund. Intellihub was the first investment from its debut secure assets fund, which targets assets that sit in the space between private equity and infrastructure. The other 50% of Intellihub was sold to Brookfield Asset Management at a AUD 3.3bn valuation.

Quadrant is currently deploying Quadrant Private Equity No. 7 - its seventh flagship fund as an independent entity, though its 10th overall - which closed on AUD 1.24bn in late 2020. Last year, the firm closed its second growth fund on AUD 530m.

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• Topics
• Australasia
• Secondaries
• Consumer
• GPs
• Fundraising
• Secondaries
• Australia
• Quadrant Private Equity
• Future Fund
• ROC Partners
• Secondaries